


The Darkening Sky

by MercuryGray



Category: Band of Brothers, Band of Brothers (TV 2001)
Genre: Alternate History, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ensemble Cast, F/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Women Being Awesome, Women in the Military, World War II
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-16
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:08:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 78,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24221827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryGray/pseuds/MercuryGray
Summary: "Some will say that it is a sad state of affairs when a country asks its women to go to war. But there is nothing sad about patriotism, and from coast to coast, America's women have answered the call in record-breaking numbers, happy and willing to serve in all branches of the service."It's summer of 1942. America's at war, and all kinds of opportunities are opening up for women - including, if the recruiting posters are to be believed, as co-ed additions to an entirely new unit of parachute infantry. Will they have what it takes?
Comments: 341
Kudos: 166





	1. Chapter 1

For the first time in two months, the lipstick was out.

The women’s bunkhouse had the electric, frivolous air of a girls’ sleepover, twenty women in various states of beauty prep, adjusting stockings and pressing skirts and returning to what some referred to as their ‘natural state’ as they attempted to wash two months of the army’s hardest training program out of their hair. (And their fingernails, and their skin, and, really, anywhere else that soap could reasonably reach.) 

"Lord, it feels good to be a girl again," Eileen said to no one in particular but her face in the mirror, carefully applying lipstick in a shade called 'Headline Red' and admiring the effect. "Of course my nails aren't done, but there's not much to be done about that, they'd be ruined tomorrow, anyway. Not that anyone's going to care," she added with a self-satisfied grin, examining the effect of her uniform on her figure. "Everything that counts looks perfect."

"You look really pretty, Eileen," Connie offered from her bed, watching the rest of the group primp and preen in front of tiny washhouse mirrors and compacts, her own uniform a little rumpled. It was only natural in this cross section of American womanhood there should be a variety of types, and Eileen and Connie were opposites, the first a city girl from Los Angeles who had aspirations to be an actress, hopeful that wartime service would get her into pictures, and the other a farm girl from Wisconsin who wanted simply ‘to do her part’ and came from a family that could send no sons.

"Why, thank you, Connie," Eileen said with a smile and the air of a benevolent queen bestowing a great favor on her poor subject. "Try some?" 

Connie shook her head, looking at the cosmetic as one might a live grenade. "It's a bit bright for me."

Eileen shrugged. "Suit yourself. But you won't get anyone to notice you if you don't have a little bit of color. And I, for one, intend to be noticed." She checked her cap again. "Preferably by someone with a bar on his collar."

"Who, Lieutenant Winters?" Molly, one of the unit’s college girls, asked with a smile from the other side of the bunkhouse, experimenting in her own mirror with another pin in her hair.

Eileen rolled her eyes. "Please! He’s handsome, but the men say he's practically a monk. No, Nixon's more my style - and they say his family's got money."

"I think there's a rule against that, Private Hammond," one of the older women remarked, sounding motherly from her bed near the door. “Fraternizing outside of ranks.”

Eileen sniffed. "You've been listening to Joan again, Marjorie. We can't let her spoil all our fun." She chuckled to herself. “Maybe we can set  _ her _ up with Winters. Neither one’s broken a rule in their lives - they’re perfect for each other!” Smiling at her own joke, she resumed her check in the mirror. “Read that article your mother sent, Judy, I want to see what it says about us.”

Judy pulled the letter (and its enclosed newspaper clipping) from where she’d stashed it under her pillow and began to read.

“Some will say that it is a sad state of affairs when a country asks its women to go to war. But there is nothing sad about patriotism, and from coast to coast, America's women have answered the call in record-breaking numbers, happy and willing to serve the country that has given them so much. Our correspondent spoke with dozens of women, volunteering for all branches of service, and from each one the answer was the same - a desire to do her part in this great undertaking. Many spoke of brothers, fathers and husbands already in service and the examples they have set of hard work and sacrifice, and hope that they, in some small way, can also contribute.”

Judy stopped reading as the door opened, and everyone sat up a little straighter, prepared to snap to attention if an officer came in. But none such emerged - only a tall, dark-haired woman in a PT shirt and fatigue trousers, clearly not dressed for an evening out. 

She looked around the bunkhouse with cautious interest. “Well, don’t stop on my account,” she offered, making her way carefully through the room so as not to bump any of the clean khaki around her. Glances were exchanged, and Judy cautiously resumed reading as the article began making a sketch of each of the women’s services - complete with grainy AP photos of each branch’s lovely uniform.

Connie sat up a little and moved so the other woman could reach her bed, whispering so that Judy could continue reading. "Joan, why aren't you dressed? The bus leaves in half an hour.”

“You all have fun,” Joan whispered back with an abbreviated smile, encouraging something she clearly didn’t believe in herself. "I'm not going.”

“Not going? Why?”

“And don't say it's because you have to wash your hair,” June put in quickly from the other side of Joan’s bed, clearly listening in and not bothering to whisper. “we all did that yesterday.”

“Yeah, it's the first time in two months they've let us look like human beings,” Ruth complained, fluffing her red hair and examining the effect in her compact.

Eileen made a noise of disgust across the room, clearly angry they’d interrupted Judy before she’d gotten to the best part of the article. “Because Saint Joan doesn't believe in fun, girls, and she wants us all to die miserable and alone like her.”

Joan’s eyes blazed for a moment at Eileen, but she took a deep breath before responding. “I can do what I like with my night off, and I'm not going into town.”

The Californian sniffed. “More for us, then! Judy, keep reading.”

“That’s it, really,” Judy said, gesturing with the article as if to show she'd couldn't make it produce more words. “There’s just this.” She held up a second clipping, and rotated it to read the writing along the side of the column- ‘Dad wanted you to see this, and asks if you can find a way to get out.’”

Glances were exchanged. “That’s not ...ominous,” said Molly.

Judy shrugged and read, holding the article up and squinting at the small type of the Letters to the Editor Column. “I am proud of all the girls who have signed up to free a man to fight, who are putting their skills as typists and secretaries to good work for the Army. These are proper places for them, and a good use of a woman's natural skills and talents. But when I…” She trailed off for a minute, either dismayed or confused by what she was reading.

“Well, don’t hold back, Judy, let’s have it,” Marjorie urged. “In for a penny, in for a pound.”

Judy swallowed. “But when I read of the Army allowing women to join the same units as men for service in combat, I am disgusted. It is positively disgraceful that they are allowing such things, and more disgraceful still that these women will be trained to kill and take life. It is a perversion of the natural order. Such arrangements will attract the worst sort of female, who will lead our boys astray and distract them from the necessary business of war, and corrupt the minds of the good women who have been hoodwinked into thinking that this is a good way for them to serve their country.”

The rest of the bunkhouse had fallen into nervous silence, listening too closely to continue their primping. Judy read on. “I read every day about the dangers men face in camp from those women with 'khaki fever' who prey upon them in pursuit of an easy payday, and can only hope that these so-called ‘soldiers’ are not among their number. The Army will destroy good women with these insidious policies, and I feel it is the duty of every god-fearing woman and wife in America to speak out against it. Signed Mrs. F Saffley, Hollingshead, Maryland.” She put the clipping down, her face a little pale. 

“Well.”

It was Molly who spoke first. “I think Mrs. Saffley’s full of bunk, and I’d like to tell her so in person. Preferably with a kick in the pants.”

“Oh, but then we’d be showing her we’ve been corrupted, Mol,” Billie replied tartly. “My mother’s got half a dozen like her in her book club. Spill tea on her party dress and crumple her napkins instead.” 

“Distraction, my foot. I heard the Colonel say we’re good for morale.”

“I don’t know about you girls, but I  _ do  _ have a case of khaki fever - and I know just the cure,” Eileen said with a devilish smile. 

Joan stood up, not having any more of it. “Let me guess - take two gold pips and go to bed early?”

They were fighting words, and everyone knew it. Two gold pips would be a captain’s bars, and everyone already knew how Eileen felt about officers - and sex. 

Eileen’s eyes did a quick once-over of Joan in her PT gear, the sweaty, rumpled t-shirt and the worn, well-loved fatigue trousers that every girl except Joan, with her long legs, had had to hem. “Well, you certainly won’t get any looking like that.”

This did it. “Don't you get it? We can't win. The men don’t want us here and America doesn’t, either. Someone in the upper ranks was looking for something clever to boost recruitment and told someone lower than him to make it happen, and that guy is looking for any opportunity to send us home. We can't fail. Failure means no woman does this, at all, ever. For every mile they run in twelve minutes, we have to run in eleven- and when we do it, and we will do it, they'll say that we cheated, or the watch was broken, or someone gave us a headstart. So we'll have to run it in ten. For every thirty pushups they do, we’ll have to do thirty five. For every bullseye we’ll have to hit two. We don't get any mistakes, and we don't get any Friday nights running around picking up boyfriends, or the only thing we’ll ever be are the women that article-“ she pointed vehemently to the letter on Judy’s bed, “-thinks we are. Loose women out to seduce our way to a wedding ring. And I don't know about any of you, but that's not why I joined the Army.” She grabbed for her sweatshirt and headed for the door. “Have fun on your Friday out. I'm running the hill again.”

“Joan!”

But she was gone. The room resumed, awkwardly. “Who spit in her oatmeal this morning?” Judy asked, half-joking.

“The mess sergeant.”

The room seemed to turn, as one, to Marjorie, adjusting her buttons in the tiny mirror next to her bunk. “What?”

"I wasn't serious," Judy said quickly.

The NCO turned and looked at the whole room, all of them dead silent and wondering if they’d heard her right. The silence begged her to go on. The older woman sighed. “Word got out that Joan can run the hill in twenty five minutes, and now the men have to run it in twenty five. So Joan got spit in her oatmeal this morning - and probably a bunch of other things no respectable girl should be eating for breakfast,” she added flatly. (The looks of revulsion as each woman imagined what this meant were frightful.) “It was completely inedible - she had half of mine.”

The bunkroom exploded. “And she’s running the hill? ” ‘Gross!” “Oh, god, in the  _ kitchen _ ?” “You don’t think she meant-” “Joan ran track in college!”

Marjorie shrugged. “Army doesn't care - and the rest of the battalion sure as hell doesn't, either. No one likes getting beaten by a girl.”

“So why be better, if everyone hates getting beaten? Because I'd like to have sex again some time in my short life, if that’s all right with Miss High Ground,” Eileen said, acidly.

“Because Joan's right.” It was Irene who’d spoken - reedy, rail-like Irene Henderson, who almost never spoke and had worked in her family’s gas station down in Tennessee and whose reasons for joining the most rough and tumble outfit in the whole army probably boiled down to the extra pay. “If we don't do it now, they won't ask again.”

\---

In the warmth of the evening, Joan stood on the parade ground and surveyed the darkening sky, trying to calm her heart back into her chest. It was a nice night to be out - nicer still if there were a beer and a jukebox and a boyfriend in one's future. But not now, when they were still fighting to be taken seriously in this outfit! Not when they had so much to lose! 

Whatever Eileen said, she didn't enjoy being the camp crank. There'd been more like her, when they started their training - glamour girls who thought they'd somehow enrolled in the powderpuff infantry rather than parachute, who'd sooner wash out than miss washing their hair, who didn't want to run or do calisthenics in case it ruined their figures or their lovely, slim legs. Women who had been exactly the type that Mrs. F. Saffley, Hollingshead, Maryland, had been thinking of when she’d written her letter. Most of them were gone now, thankfully.

But there was a definite type she recognized in her fellow recruits, the sort of girl who looks good on magazine covers and in photo ops on the arms of generals and on stages selling war bonds, with a couple of actual soldiers mixed in by recruiting sergeants who hadn’t gotten the same memo as the rest, women like Connie who could hump a radio or a mortar base or a machine gun as easily as the men and who, with the right light (and a place in the back) could be ready for the cover of TIME while women like Eileen shone out front and center, picture perfect recruits for a new kind of soldier in a new kind of army.

_ Oh, LIFE magazine can write all they like about lightening planes and using us for headquarters functions, but I know a PR stunt when I see it, _ Joan thought to herself bitterly. _ Uncle Jack said they would. We'll be lucky if we get to jump once, let alone see combat. _

_ And is that going to stop you from taking it seriously?  _ asked the little voice in her head. 

_ Hell no.  _

It couldn’t - especially when so many of the others seemed not to notice that no one expected them to do any real soldiering. They’d believed every word on the recruitment posters, were proud of what they'd volunteered for, excited to be a part of something new, determined to succeed! Ruth, who was lying to her mother about where she was and Billie who could have joined the Nurse Corps instead and June who had never let a limp stop her from doing anything. They were good women, and if she had to fight her way out of a scrap, she’d take them all - even Eileen, who could be damn stubborn when she needed to be.

Because they’d need stubborn. And maybe, just maybe, if they could outrun and outlast and outshoot the men, then maybe, _maybe_ someone would see the value in using them as soldiers.

_ But we have to be  _ seen _ as soldiers first - not convenient Friday night dates _ , Joan thought to herself, watching the bunkhouses empty as she finished her stretches.  _ And that's why your camp crank is preaching sermons, Private Hammond, and running the Hill on a Friday when no one asked her to. _

She'd hoped she could start her run before she had an audience, but luck, it seemed, was not on her side today. The sun was down, and dozens of men in their fresh-pressed khaki were milling about on the gravel, smoking and laughing, anticipating the night to come. In a major city Joan probably wouldn't have been out alone at night, especially if someone had said there'd be an army base full of men wandering the streets like packs of dogs, but she felt safe enough here. 

A strict lecture on day one had kept the men from getting handsy, but nothing in the world could stop their favorite activity - cat-calling. It was bad enough to get wolf-whistles as the whole group was doing calisthenics (though that, she thought, was decreasing a little as the novelty wore off - a good sign) but there was no target quite like a woman on her own - especially the one you love to hate. 

“Hey, Joan of Arc, couldn't get anyone to sack your town this week?”   
“That chastity belt chafe when you run, Warren?”

Tired jokes, all of them.  _ And Joan of Arc terrified entire armies, idiots. _ Joan concentrated on the sound of her shoes on the gravel, trying to time her breathing to a marching cadence and ignore the catcalls.  _ We fall upon the risers, we fall upon the grass, we never land on our feet, we always hit our ass! Heidy, deidy, Christ Almighty, who the hell are we? Bim, bam, goddamn, We're Airborne Infantry! _

But there was another voice, singing the same song, out of step with hers, and Joan, on the edge of the field, let up a minute and looked behind her.

Gone were the pressed uniforms and the accouterments of going out - the women of Toccoa were dressed to run, and singing heartily, with Billie in the lead, singing the marching song they’d made their own after it was suggested to them that ‘Blood on the Risers’ wasn’t very ladylike. 

Can a woman join the Army, yes she can, yes she can,

Can a woman learn the reg book, yes she can, yes she can

Can a woman march in cadence, wait her orders with impatience, 

Can a woman join the Army, yes she can, yes she can!

As the rest of the group went by, PT shorts and all, Eileen's picture-perfect movie star makeup and Doris's hair, all done up for a night on the town, jaws dropped. "Sorry fellas,” Molly said sweetly, “records aren't going to break themselves."

“Tell the townies you got stood up and hope they take pity on you,” Ruth shouted over her shoulder with a catty grin, more than happy in the spirit of her New York roots to return the favor of a catcall.

Joan almost wanted to cry. “Well, come on, Warren, we ain’t waiting,” Billie barked, and Joan quickly wiped her eye and fell in at the end of the column, taking a deep breath and looking over at Marjorie to say thank you. The former teacher shook her head and mouthed “Irene.”

_ Irene? _ If Joan had picked a fervent defender, the slip of a woman from Tennessee wouldn’t have been it - but further up the column, the woman herself glanced back and smiled at Joan, and she felt a little lighter, joining in the next verse with all the renewed energy of a woman who believes in what she sings.

_ Can a woman join the Airborne? Yes, she can, yes she can, _

_ Can a woman be a trooper? Yes she can, yes she can, _

_ Can she learn to shine a boot, how to jump and how to shoot,  _

_ Can a woman join the Airborne? Yes she can. _

“What the hell was that?” Nixon asked, his eyes following the group as they blazed through some equally confused guys from C Company. 

“Brave,” said Winters with just the barest hint of smile, watching as the women disappeared into the shadow of Currahee, still singing.

Several hours (and more than several beers) later, the absence of the women from Friday night revels was still the only thing anyone wanted to talk about - and, as was usual on a Friday, the talk had devolved into a detailed discussion of more ...personal attributes.

“Naw, but if you had to pick one, to, you know, share your foxhole-”

“Eileen Hammond,” said Nixon from behind his rocks glass with a knowledgeable smile, “can  _ always  _ share my foxhole.”

Across the table, Dick Winters frowned a little, and Nixon, always ready to take his friend down a peg, leaned into the table. “Oh, come on, you’ve got eyes! If Ava Gardner walked into camp and asked you to fix her collar, wouldn’t you?”

But Winters wasn’t having it. “We keep telling the men they volunteered so that when the fighting was bad, they’d know the guy next to them would be the best. When you're pinned down and surrounded, who are you going to want next to you - Hammond, or Joan Warren?'

Nixon, seeing that his friend was, as usual, dead serious, sighed. “I’m supposed to say Warren, aren’t I?”

“Well, I’m not sure, Nix, but she can outrun the entire battalion and outshoot about half of them, and if she were a man, she’d be wearing a bar the same color as ours - and you know it.”

It wasn’t like Winters to speak so long or so eloquently on a topic, especially when it was a matter of opinion, and on an opinion of women, to boot. In all of these discussions he was more often an observer than participant, and his views on any of the female candidates were not common knowledge. Nor was it Nixon’s style to let this sudden outburst pass without comment. “You do know no one expects us to take them seriously, don’t you? Come on, Dick! The Army is not going to let perfectly good women jump from airplanes!”

“But no one told  _ them _ that.” And, lesson dispensed, Winters sat back in his chair and returned to his lemonade, and the rest of the officers returned to their beers, wondering now, as perhaps they had not seriously wondered before, if it were possible that the women would not wash out or be found wanting, and that they might one day have female soldiers to command.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I'm not totally happy with it, but short a trip to the library (not currently possible) I think this is about as good as it's going to get. and it's alternate history, so...I get a little leniency, right?
> 
> So there's this trope, in fanfiction, where we add a girl into a story and magically make her an exception to the rules and never discuss how she got there, and since there are a lot of women doing a lot of things in World War Two that aren't the parachute infantry, it got me thinking - what would a world in which women _did_ join the paratroopers look like? So this is that.
> 
> This isn't a gender-bend, and I'm not trying to elbow any of the Easy guys out of a job - the reason I didn't have any of the enlisted men show up in this piece is because I really wanted the women to get a chance to breathe a little as characters. And despite any evidence to the contrary, I tried not to write anyone with the express purpose of 'spending time in anyone's foxhole,' to borrow a phrase. (If I decide to keep writing, though, who knows? They're all consenting adults - although a couple do have boyfriends.)
> 
> The Women's Army Corps is created in May of 1942, and most of the other women's services follow after that, either picking up where they left off in the 20s after the Great War or creating new service models. Of the women's services, I feel like I'm borrowing the most from them, as most other services didn't receive weapons training. The 506th begins training in August of 1942.
> 
> The marching song at the end is lifted (at least in spirit) from the Girl Scout Songbook - new lyrics are by me. You can sing to to the tune of "She'll be Comin' Round The Mountain" - which also works for our Toccoa gals, honestly.
> 
> Speaking of those gals, I want to thank Middlemarch, youretheobiwanforme, the-scariest-librarian, and incognito-princess on Tumblr for loaning me a few good women. I love them all, and I hope you do, too.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toccoa's lone female lieutenant has a lot of explaining to do regarding Friday night - and it doesn't really sound like Colonel Sink really cares to hear it.

Annie Sutton did not have many occasions to be in Colonel Sink’s office. Since she’d arrived at Toccoa eight months ago, the camp commander did not have much to say to his lone female officer apart from ‘Good Morning’ - and even that was delivered under the extreme duress of good manners. 

And Lieutenant Sutton almost preferred it that way.

It had been a long eight months since she’d received her orders calling her away from Fort Des Moines and the training program for the Army’s female recruits there, eight months of fighting tooth and nail to be respected, to have her soldiers taken seriously. The Army had long since realized that women for the Quartermaster corps and Services of Supply was no great sacrifice of its ideals, especially after the long years of the Depression reminded them that unmarried women are far cheaper than men.  _ Let the female soldier answer phones and file paperwork, and fix an engine at an absolute need, _ they said, turning over their tables of command to see where costs could be cut.  _ Let her march, and drill, and look pretty in her uniform. But the only powder she will have to keep dry is in her compact, and the only battle she will ever undertake is with her typewriter ribbon. _

And for a while, it had been enough for some women. But not for soldiers like Lieutenant Sutton, women who chose to make the Army a career as men had. They were not, and would never be, glorified secretaries. They aspired to something more. 

Change had been slow - in the thirties, it was declared women could elect a small arms course, if they desired, and long arms a little later, and after that qualify for a marksman’s badge (markswomen, Sutton substituted mentally.) The long skirts that had marked the uniforms of the Great War slowly rose to meet current fashion, the dowdy, boxy jackets of the teens slowly giving way to a more tailored look, an ideal emerging that the women who wore these uniforms could run and jump alongside the men, could be something to aspire to. 

And after some bigwig in a District of Columbia office had read a puff piece on some of Sutton’s soldiers at Des Moines winning a shooting competition, they called up the GCS and demanded to know why, if they were so talented, and trained to the same standard as the men, these women were not being put into combat? “Mr. Hitler’s pinning medals on women for making babies - let’s show him what American girls can do!”

Oh, Lieutenant Sutton would have liked to hit that man, if she could find him. (And as regimental boxing champion, three years running, she hit hard.) The pet project had been poked, prodded, and passed from department to department until someone had hit upon the idea that female soldiers - pretty, young female soldiers - would be good for recruitment.

So now First Lieutenant Annie Sutton was training these girls to fieldstrip a rifle and run a clean mile - and all it would be for, she feared, was jumping out of planes at war bond rallies and guilt-tripping good boys into joining the Army.

But until that time as the Army could say that they’d raised more money than the latest Hollywood starlet, her soldiers were a joke, and a stick in the eye of the man who had to put up with them on his base, with his soldiers - and that man was Colonel Sink. A man who at this very moment was trying to find one reason, one very good reason, why he shouldn’t boot them all out of Toccoa and back to Fort Des Moines and the typing pool.

The office had a large window with a nice view of the parade ground, and Sutton took the opportunity to observe the comings and goings of the camp, wondering if this was the last she’d see of Georgia. Iowa was fine, but there was something about the hills, about Currahee, that raised the blood and made a woman dream big things. The settlers who’d pushed into these hills during the Revolution had been tough, hardy people to make a living here, and Sutton felt a kinship with them, with that spirit. She wanted to push in, to hold, and not yield a yard.

But to do that, she’d have to face Sink.

The door opened, and she snapped to attention, back ramrod straight as Toccoa’s commanding officer came and took a seat behind his desk, opening some correspondence as he went. “Lieutenant Sutton.”

“Sir.”

He could not fault in her salute, and gave a half-hearted gesture for her to stand at ease. “A little bird tells me your girls refused passes this Friday in favor of extra PT.”

Always girls, never women. Males could be men, warriors, soldiers, paratroopers. Females were girls, always, be they fresh-faced creatures of twenty or matrons of fifty-five. Girls could be pushed off the playground. Girls could have their pigtails pulled so they’d go crying home. Girls could be easily ignored. “Yes, sir, that’s correct.”

“You put them up to that, Lieutenant Sutton? Way to make the men look bad?”

“I said nothing to the women, sir, it was of their own initiative.” Should she do it? Was she brave enough? “They want to be here, sir, and they’re serious about their training.”

Wrong choice. Sink looked up at her with blazing eyes, rising quickly from his chair and coming around to her side of the desk. “Are you saying my men aren’t?”

_ Damn. _ “No, sir, that wasn’t -”

“Are you saying my men don’t care about what they’re doing here, Sutton?” Sink asked, his face mere inches from Annie’s, that drill sergeant’s posture that still brought her back to her own training nearly fifteen years ago. “That none of them volunteered because _ they cared _ ? That none of them want to be  _ the best _ ?”

Sutton took a quick breath, her eyes fixed on the wall behind Sink’s desk, the commendations and framed awards. “Connie Schmidt, sir, father, wounded, Saint-Mihiel, Doris Russo, sir, father and uncle, killed, Seicheprey, Marjorie Gordon, father, wounded, Belleau Wood, June Fowler, brother currently aboard USS Idaho, another brother in the Army, Julie Griffiths, cousin, missing, presumed a prisoner of war, Dunkirk, Molly Mahoney, brother, killed, Pearl Harbor.”

There it was - their honors list. Not as impressive or extensive as the regiment’s, but it served. Blue stars, gold stars, wound stripes, service stripes, medals - they knew them all, the decorations of uncles and fathers (and grandfathers, too, Joan Warren had said once one of hers was at Port Hudson) as nearly and dearly as if they were their own.

Sink’s expression was still sour. “What are you saying, Sutton?”

“I’m saying American women already know something about war, sir.” She swallowed. “And they want to do their part, sir, to fight for  _ their _ families, and they care tremendously, and they don’t  _ want  _ to be a joke, sir.”

“That’s not what I hear from the PX,” the Colonel said, sitting down on the edge of his desk.

He meant the girls who had made themselves very friendly on Fridays and meant something different than Sutton did when they talked about ‘serving the Army.’ “I believe we’ve gotten rid of the worst of that, sir. What remains are good, solid soldiers.”

“Can any of them type forty words a minute?”

_ Are you testing any of the men on forty words a minute,  _ Sutton wanted to say, but that was sass, plain and simple, and she was already on thin ice. “Supply has been unable to issue me typewriters, sir, but they can all field strip and reassemble a rifle and hit a bullseye four times out of five with it.”

Sink’s nostrils flared. “Are you sassing me, Lieutenant Sutton?”

“No, sir.”  _ Maybe, a little. _

“And where are your girls now?”

“Classroom instruction, sir.”

“Get ‘em out on the rifle range in fifteen minutes. I want to see them hit those bullseyes.”

Sutton snapped a salute and turned on her heel, steps in perfect regulation length until she made it out of the office, and double-timed it over to the classroom where Toccoa’s female recruits were in the middle of a map reading exercise. 

“Up and at ‘em, ladies!” She shouted, sending the classroom into a frenzy as the women struggled to get out of desks and salute.  _ He wants bullseyes? I’ll damn well give him bullseyes. _

In ten minutes the women were out and ready for action, lined up at the range in prone positions just as Sink’s jeep bounced into the view.

“What the hell’s wrong with Sutton?” June asked, leaning over to her training partner, Ruth. “We just did target practice yesterday.”

The redhead looked over her shoulder at their training officer, whose frown (and salute) were tighter than usual as Sink dismounted the Jeep. “Search me.” 

Further down the line, Doris looked over Irene’s shoulder and made a face. “I hope he’s not here just to check out our asses.” 

“Doris!” Irene hissed, staring down her gunsight. (Even after three months, the soft-spoken Tennesseean was still having a problem with strong language and freely voiced opinions.)

“That’s the only reason Sobel was here yesterday and you know it,” Doris murmured back, trying to keep her voice down as Sutton and Sink made an inspection of the girls’ positions. “Why else would he hang around the range while his company runs Currahee? The man’s a creep.”

“A creep with rank,” Marjorie said quietly from their left, partnered with Joan at the far end of the range. “Keep it down, or we’ll blow this.”

“Colonel Sink has reason to believe we falsified our target practice yesterday, ladies,” Sutton said crisply from above their heads. 

“Sobel again,” Doris grumbled again to Irene.

“So he’s asked us to repeat it, with himself as an observer,” the Lieutenant continued. “You each have a full clip - you will fire two rounds at the target from each of the firing positions, beginning on the ground. I will time you. Ready - steady. Fire!”

Eight rounds in a clip. Two shots from the ground, two shots from a seat, two shots kneeling, two shots standing up. Easy enough when you had time to move, but Sutton had made them run this yesterday until every woman’s knees were blue. Ground, seat, kneel, stand, seat, ground, stand, kneel, prone, stand - they’d gone to bed with firing positions dancing in their heads and gunsights flashing inside their eyelids. It was one thing to keep a position, but another still to move, assume your position, take your mark, and maintain accuracy of fire - all against the grim spectre of the stopwatch.

“Cease firing!” Sink sent his orderly to collect the results and have the range master refresh the targets.

“Reload! Partners, switch over.”

Clips were exchanged, positions resumed, slings recalibrated and the exercise began again in earnest, eight shots a woman, eight nicely drilled holes in the firing range targets. Sutton still looked a little stiff, though there was a slight smile tugging at her mouth. Sink’s mood, meanwhile, did not seem to be improving, inspecting the results as his orderly placed them on the hood of his jeep.

“Position seven - the ...Italian girl -”

“Russo, sir.”

“-yes, her, have her strip the gun.”

“Russo!” Doris leapt to her feet and snapped a salute that would have made an MP proud. “You heard Colonel Sink,” Sutton urged, gesturing to the wooden canvas covered table at the back of the range.

“Come on, Doris,” Joan urged quietly, watching the Chicagoan lay her weapon out on the table and wait for Sutton’s mark for time. Sink had picked her, no doubt, because the rosy cheeks and curls did not suggest anything in the least bit warlike, but what the Colonel did not know was that the former hairdresser’s fingers were probably the most nimble in the whole line, and if he was looking for someone to flub his test, Doris Russo wasn’t it.

When Doris had successfully disassembled and reassembled her rifle, loaded it, and stepped to the firing line to empty her clip, Sink’s face was getting hard to read. “Where’s this Warren character I keep hearing about?”

Sutton glanced down the row, and Joan scrambled to her feet. “Let’s see if her marksmanship’s as good as her running,” Sink said, his eyes cold. “I’ll call the play.”

Up and down the firing line, the smiles were starting to come back out. If anyone could win it for them and the Lieutenant, Joan could. Joan, meanwhile, steadied her breathing, and fixed her eye on the target at the end of the range. “Mark!”

Eight positions, called in random order, eight shots - a thing of beauty. From her position down the row, Molly, the classics major, whispered something in what must have been Greek, practically grinning from ear to ear. Judy looked up at her, confused, and Molly waved her away. Even Sutton was almost smiling as the range master returned with the results, a neat little cluster of holes that, had it been a person, would well and truly have been dead.

Sink’s face, however, was still impenetrable. “Damn fine shooting. Where you from, Warren?”

“Wyoming, sir.”

The answer seemed to surprise him. “Don’t sound like you’re from out west.”

It was true - anytime Joan talked about life in Cheyenne in her posh Mid-Atlantic accent, eyebrows raised. “I spent most of my life on the East Coast, sir. For school.”

“One of them fancy schools for girls, mmm? That where you learned to shoot?”

“No, sir. My uncle Jack, sir.”

“He military?”

Joan’s face made the oddest expression for a moment. They’d all heard her mention Uncle Jack once or twice, but her family wasn’t something she discussed often, or in detail - not even with Marjorie. “Yes, sir. Career army.”

That, at least, the colonel could agree with. His craggy face moved to something that might have been a smile, and gave a curt nod - the closest he would come to a compliment.

Sink looked around, and, business concluded, resumed his seat in the jeep, returned Sutton’s salute, and drove off. Sutton watched him go and, ever so briefly, allowed herself a smile.  _ You’re not getting rid of us that easily.  _ And, victory briefly celebrated, she fixed her frown back on and turned back to her soldiers - her girls. “Ladies! That might have been good enough for  _ the boys,  _ but it’s not good enough for me! Reload, and we’ll run it  _ again.  _ Warren, get your ass back in line, that last position was sloppy. ” 

That night, after more rifle drill, a return to the abandoned map exercise, and another run (seven miles, but only around camp this time, on flat ground, as a treat) followed by showers, Annie stood on the step outside the bunkhouse, typed sheet in hand. This was it. They were in it now. She knocked twice on the door and did not wait before walking in.

Every woman stood to attention as she entered, hair-half brushed, shirts unbuttoned, mouths still full of toothpaste. They’d learned that instinct quicker than the men had, and she was proud of them for it. “At ease, ladies.” Postures relaxed, and Connie swiveled to the sink to rinse and spit.

Annie held up the sheet of paper.

“After your performance this afternoon, it has just come down from Colonel Sink’s office that they’ve finally decided what they’re doing with us.” Glances were exchanged, each woman thinking the same thing - was this it? Sutton looked around, and allowed herself a smile. “We’re being assigned to Easy Company for the time being.” She let that settle for a moment as the entire bunkhouse either sighed in relief, whooped in success or punched the air for joy. “Now, this is not a cause for celebration just yet. Do you know why?”

“Because Lieutenant Sobel is the meanest son of a bitch in the outfit, ma’am?” Billie put in with a knowledgeable grin.

Annie had to smile at that. “You all don’t miss much,” she said, giving half a nod. “And you’re correct. They still want you to fail, ladies. Today was just a taster. Colonel Sink wants to get you out of his hair, and Lieutenant Sobel is how he’s going to do it. But I know you better. And if Lieutenant Sobel’s a mean son of a bitch, I know some of you can be pretty hard bitches yourselves.” She allowed them their laugh - some of them coming into this thing would never have used the word, and now it was as natural to them as air, a badge of honor that only their fellow women could bestow. Bitches, as the saying went, got shit done. “And  _ none of you _ are going to let him get the better of you. He will fight dirty, and you will fight right back because your strength - your strength, ladies, is going to be each other.”

“Won’t  _ we _ fight back, lieutenant?” Doris asked.

Sutton’s smile, when it appeared again, was sad, but grateful. “I’ll take the compliment, Russo. I am remaining one of your training officers for the time being, but I’ve been told I won’t go to jump school with you - or to Europe. You’ll be under a male command, until they see fit to promote one of you. There is no doubt in my mind that that  _ will _ happen.” There were solid leaders in Gordon and in Mitchell, older women who could both give orders and dispense wisdom and keep their heads in a crisis. Warren, too, had her followers, and she’d find more - she had an assurance about her that made people listen when she spoke. “You’ll fall in with them tomorrow at zero six hundred for PT.” She looked around at the eager young faces, so ready to prove their worth. “Give ‘em hell.” 

And, leaving grins and whoops behind her, she nodded, and stepped back out into the warmth of the night, feeling a little more at peace. There was a letter in her room she had to finish writing to Lillian, back in Iowa, and there were things she wanted to add, about today’s meeting with Sink, and the rifle range, and thoughts about the mountains here in Georgia.  _ They truly are my girls - no one can call them girls but me, Lil - and I am as proud of them as if they were my own daughters.  _

_ When we retire, what would you say about building a little cabin out here, where it’s quiet and no one will care about two old broads living together? Give it a thought. I’ll send some pictures the first chance I get.  _

_ I miss you terribly. _

* * *

Back in the bunkhouse, the girls were still discussing this newest development (what fresh hell they could expect from Sobel, what they thought the mood of the men might be on this change) as they turned down for the night, almost too excited to sleep.

“Molly, what did you say earlier, when Joan was shooting?” Judy asked, turning over in her bunk and propping herself on an elbow to look at Molly, brushing her hair.

Molly looked up, trying to remember. “Oh, that? Nothing. A quote from a guy named Quintus Smyrnaeus. He was a Roman historian - he wrote about Troy.”

“What, New York?”

The classics major made a face (one of many such, when her fellow recruits did not understand one of her references) and tried to collect her thoughts without sounding like a bore. “No, the...the ancient city of Troy - in the Aeneid.” More blank looks. “They’re under siege by the Greeks because...well, it’s a long story, but the Amazons come to help the Trojans, and when they arrive, with their queen, Penthesilia, and her twelve soldier attendants, Smyrnaeus says that she came “ _ clothed upon with beauty of Goddesses, came athirst indeed for groan-resounding battle” _ and later he calls her “ _ a princess, hot for war and battle grim.”  _

As with many things Molly talked about, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense, but it sounded big and noble. Judy let the idea roll around in her head a little, the idea of being  _ hot for war _ , or whatever  _ groan-resounding battle _ was. “Damn.”

“Yeah,” Molly agreed. “And I just...thought of that, today, watching Sutton run us through our stuff for Sink - watching Joan. Never thought of us as Amazons before.”

“Didn’t the Amazons ride into battle bare-breasted?” Billie asked from the other side of Molly’s bed.

Molly considered the options. “Let’s maybe skip that part.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In for a penny, in for a pound on the alternate history stuff! 
> 
> When the WAC is formed, the idea really is to 'free a man' to fight' and that's the position I've taken here, albeit twenty years earlier. And yes, women are usually thought of as a 'cheaper' workforce - which is why they're some of the first 'computers' for large scale data projects in the 1900s. (The Glass Universe, by Dava Sobel, is excellent, by the way.) The Navy and the Marines both use women in administrative functions in World War One, but the only place you'll find women in the WWI Army is at a telephone switchboard - which I could go on for days about, ask anyone who knows me.
> 
> Fort Des Moines is the historic home of the (real) WWII WAC.
> 
> The rifle positions described (probably very badly) here are from a 1942 training video, which you can find on YouTube.
> 
> I hope no one finds Annie pejorative; I just got to the end of the chapter and said, "She's got a girlfriend, doesn't she?" For more on women like Annie and Lillian, "Coming Out Under Fire: The History of Gay Men and Women in World War II" by Allan Berube is a thing that exists.
> 
> I am so incredibly glad that one of the girls is a classics major, because making references to Amazons makes me happy, and Quintus Smyrnaeus is probably not the last old Roman author we'll hear from in this story.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No one asked any of them if they wanted to let the girls play on their team - and a few members of Easy Company are getting a little angry about it.
> 
> [rating changed to reflect swearing and implied sexual situations.]

After a month under his command, the men of Easy Company were now quite used to Herbert Sobel’s particular brand of punishment. Insults, midnight marches, extra KP and latrine duty, the cancellation of passes - these were things they knew and could tolerate, though they cursed him as they did so, in language vivid and intense. 

But they were coming to realize that there was a particular  _ kind _ of meanness to the way that he approached the newest additions to his company. The men he had put down, until their skins were tough enough to bear it - the women, he seemed intent on  _ humiliating.  _

“Why is it that suddenly Sobel’s having us run in the rain all the time?” Joe Toye asked, sitting down to dinner after yet another water-logged afternoon out in full packs. “I’m turning into a fucking fish.”

“Because a shirt sticks to the skin when it’s wet,” Carwood Lipton said sagely from his end of the table, already sitting down with his own bowl of tomato soup, breathing in what little steam was coming off of the rapidly cooling soup and trying to warm up.

Toye did not appreciate the answer. “And what the hell does  _ that _ have to do with anything?”

The table looked at Lipton to explain. “If it’s wet, it doesn’t take anything to imagine what Hammond’s shirt looks like when it’s off,” Lipton elaborated, looking around the table as each man, in his turn, realized that yes, it  _ wasn’t _ all that hard to see the niceties of an Army-issue brassiere when a thin PT shirt was plastered against it and damn, why hadn’t they thought of that? 

“Is that all?” Toye made a face into his dinner. “Goddamn. And what’s this getting us, having girls in the company, apart from a hell of a cold?”

Perconte paused in the shoveling of his soup. “I heard they’re gonna use ‘em for headquarters duties - typing reports and stuff.”

“And they gotta go through basic for that? Bullshit, is what it is. Leave ‘em here, in the states, with their cute ties and their skirts and their typewriters, and let us get on with fighting the goddamn war. They can’t even shoot straight.”

“Shoot straighter than you,” Randleman observed peaceably from the other end of the table. “That Lieutenant Sutton, she’s made every single one of ‘em a rifleman  _ par excellence _ .” (The French, pronounced in Randleman’s heavy Arkansas twang, took on an even more rarified air.) “Even Lieutenant Winters said so.”

Sobel they could dismiss and Sutton they could argue with, but Winters’ good opinion actually counted for something, and Toye knew it. “Aw, shut your yap.”

“You know what you haven’t had since they joined us, Toye?” asked Lipton. “Latrine duty. He’s got the girls doing it nearly every week.”

“Yeah,” Perconte confirmed. “And he watches.”

Joe made a face. “What, watches them clean toilets?” A nod from Perconte. “Why? What the fuck is his problem?”

“Why should you care?” Randleman asked, obviously a little more fractious than he looked this evening. “If he’s doing that he’s not riding your scrawny ass ‘bout something else.”

“Because that’s the only way he’s going to get them on their knees,” Lipton observed, blowing on his soup a minute. “And that’s right where he wants them.”

Everyone looked at Lipton with concern. The quietest of Easy’s sergeants, Carwood Lipton wasn’t given to theatrics, or shouting, or even the occasional indulgence in a dirty joke. For the most part, he kept himself to himself, and for him to speak so openly of getting a girl ‘on her knees’ was out of character in several ways, even if he was describing someone else. And if Lip - Lip, of all people! - had taken notice, and gone to the further trouble of passing comment on it, then something was  _ wrong _ .

It was impossible not to get to know Easy’s newest additions just a little - their hometowns, and who had the trick for getting boots to shine just so, and who was particularly good to know before weapons inspections because sometimes a man’s fingers just didn’t work like that. They were kind of like the girls next door - the kind you’d get to play a base in the neighborhood game when her brother was sick, or ask for her help getting another girl in class to like you - the kind your ma pointed out to you in church on Sundays. Nice girls, or nice enough. Every man in the company had been gigged by Sobel for something or other - but none had been...propositioned, and as they all sat with that knowledge a minute, of Sobel’s leers and comments and innuendo towards these girls their mothers would have liked, and how he would not have used such weapons against men, a distinct feeling of unease was beginning to set in. 

Innuendo, however, meant little to Toye. “So you’re sayin’ if we can get one of them to blow the lieutenant he’ll ease up a bit?”

There were frowns. “But it wouldn’t just be once,” Lipton said. “It’s never just once with him. Give him an inch and he’ll take a mile.”

“Look, I wouldn’t wish Sobel’s sweaty balls on any of those broads, but -”

Lipton fixed Toye with a quiet look of disgust. “Do you really want to finish that sentence?”

“I wouldn’t wish Sobel’s sweaty balls on anyone,” Perconte added quickly. 

“But if-”

“Joe,” said Lipton, before the suggestions got graphic again, “if word got out that the only reason -the only reason - you were in the army was that you gave the nurse taking your physical the best lay she’d ever gotten in her life, how would you feel?”

Toye shrugged and grinned. “Pretty damn good, I just fucked a nurse.”

Laughs from the surrounding seats, as Toye sat up a little straighter and looked around at his friends as if to say,  _ no, really, throw me another one _ . Lip pressed his mouth into a thin line. “And how do you think  _ we’d _ all feel about that, knowing that’s what you did to get in? That you cheated? And the rest of the regiment? How would they feel? Do you think they’d respect you, Joe? Look at you the same? If we were here because we passed some tests, and trained hard... and the only reason  _ you _ were here was because you slept with a nurse?” Joe’s smile vanished. “Exactly.”

The table returned to an uneasy silence, several of them glancing to the table by the door of the mess where the girls (just as bedraggled as the rest of them) were laughing over something Eileen had said. Talbert looked up from a study of his own shirtsleeve. “It’s really just about their shirts?” 

Lipton nodded. “Watch who gets more punishments. Schmidt, or Bryant, or Henderson, he ignores, but Warren, Mitchell, Hammond - none of them would give him the time of day if he were wearing civies, and he hates ‘em for it.”

“Because Hammond and Warren are classy broads, that’s why, and Mitchell’s smart,” Guarnere said, joining the conversation from the other side of the aisle. “As she would be, being from Philly. She knows a punk when she sees one. Don’t know why any of ‘em decided to join the army in the first place.”

“Mahoney’s brother died at Pearl Harbor, and Fowler’s got a brother in the Army  _ and  _ the Navy, and Henderson’s got some cousins in the Marines. They just wanted to be in it, too.”

The whole table turned to look at Lipton again, who had just spoken more in the last fifteen minutes than many of them had heard him speak in the last two weeks. “Jesus, Lip, when the hell did you learn all this stuff?”

The sergeant gave one of his quiet shrugs. “I went to the kitchen to get some coffee the other night - we just...got to talking, about home and such.”

“And Hammond? Don’t tell me she’s got a sob story about a brother.”

“Well, why don’t you ask her yourself, Talbert? Turn on that midwestern charm. I’m sure she’d be happy to tell you.” 

Talbert suddenly looked as though he’d rather walk over hot coals. He was spared the indignity of comment on this, however, by the timely arrival of Smokey, limping into the mess hall after a late return from their march.

“Ayyy, Smokey! Where the hell you been?”

“Infirmary,” Smokey said. “Doc says it was just a sprain.”

“And were you making pals with Warren there, in the back of the pack? Saw she was getting mighty friendly with you. Arm around your shoulders and everything.”

“Yeah, invite us to the wedding, will ya?”

“Hey, lay off, It wasn’t like that.” Smokey looked around the table, as they all looked for some indication of what it had, in fact, been like. “The water was rushing and a rock hit my shin, and then there was a gopher hole, or some crap like that - I would have fallen over if she hadn’t caught my arm.”

“Oh, oh, your shin, Smokey, so sorry. And where is Saint Joan this evening? A grateful nation needs to thank her.”

“Scrubbing dirty dishes, I think,” came the reply.

The table gaped. “What, for helping you run the hill?” They’d all done that, at one time or another, whether for barfing spaghetti or tripping over laces, and no one had taken a hit for it. 

“Sobel said she chickened out and was making the company look bad and gave her KP duty.” Smokey looked around the rest of the table and shrugged. “Look, I know we ain’t supposed to want ‘em here, but all I know is that that woman half carried my sorry ass up a mountain today, made sure I didn’t kill myself on the way back down, never asked for a thank you, and took one of Sobel's dumb punishments for it. So... I think she's all right,” Smokey said, tucking into his soup as though the matter was considered closed, and the rest of them returned to the remains of their dinner with much to think about - that perhaps Lipton and Smokey had a point, that the girls were all right, that if they were on the team already, and ready to play, there could be something in letting them into the game. (And, when it came to it, Smokey wasn't a small guy. Joan Warren, it seemed, was stronger than she looked.)

The mess began to empty out, and Joan herself hustled by with a stained white apron and large bin, collecting dirty dishes as though she did this every night, and had not just run six miles in the rain for the privilege of doing it. Several others tossed the dishes in her direction, someone scoring a direct hit with the remains of his soup down the front of her apron and laughing to his friends. Warren tried not to look bothered, moping at the mess with a rag and continuing on her rounds. She paused at their table, dish bin nearly full and looking incredibly heavy. “Hey, how’s the ankle, Smokey?”

Smokey looked up and smiled. “Doc says it’ll be fine, thanks for asking.”

She nodded, and glanced around the table and the strange mixture of thoughtful, guilty, and bashful looks she found there. No one said anything, though Talbert seemed transfixed by her now-dry t-shirt. The silence felt suspicious. “Take your plates, fellas?” 

Several of them nodded, passing them down and setting them into her bin so the remains of the tomato soup wouldn’t slosh, rising from the table in ones and twos. “Thanks, Warren.” “Yeah, thanks.” Guarnere nodded approvingly as he went by, and the rest passed by her without further comment - or a grab for her ass.

“The weirdest thing,” Joan said, lugging her bin to the table by the door, where a few of her fellow women were still moping up the remains of their soup. She stepped as close to the end of the table as space permitted, letting a few more men go around her to reach the door.

“They threw food at you?” Ruth asked, setting her plate in with the rest and finishing her coffee. “If you want that to stop you gotta throw it back, Joan. Only way they’ll learn - you know that.”

“No,” Joan said, glancing out the door into the night. “They all said thank you.”  _ And I’m not sure what for. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I need to go on record with this: I love Carwood Lipton. Every time I watch this show, I'm reminded how much I love him. His leadership style (even in that very first episode) is wonderful and something I aspire to. I believe he's also already married when the show starts, which is why I've picked on him to do a little leading by example. (Toye I picked on just because he has the kind of colorful language I needed for this episode.)
> 
> The further I get into this, the more I think the Easy Company attitude towards Sobel's treatment of the women will be akin to pissing in Sobel's coffee. ("You know a man in this company who wouldn't double-time Currahee with a full pack, just to piss in that man's morning coffee?") Will it make him angry if we let 'em in and give 'em credit for doing stuff? Great. Let's do that. We may even find out they're good at stuff.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Colonel Sink is always making improvements to the obstacle course. Last week it might have been pig guts. This week, it's a wall.

The obstacle course was Colonel Sink’s pride and joy.

Oh, the prescribed PT manual was all well and good for the regular infantry, but these men were going to be paratroopers, and paratroopers would be held to a higher standard of excellence, which was why, with frightening regularity, the men of Toccoa showed up to find some new improvement added to the course that already more torture device than workout. One week it might be a newer, higher pipe ladder, and the next fresh pig entrails in the wire entanglement trenches, a pungent reminder that babies creep, but riflemen crawl.

Today it was a wall.

Nearly at the end of the course layout, the previous obstacle, which had been cleared by vaulting up - a hard sell for those who only just cleared the army’s height requirement - had been replaced by a significantly taller model with several ropes hanging from the top, ropes that they could see, even from this distance, ended far higher than the ground. “You will jump, grab hold of the handrope, and pull yourself to the top, at which point you should be able to pivot and jump down the modest distance of twelve feet,” Sobel explained, practically grinning over this new development. “This will be good practice for when we begin disembarking our airplanes, gentlemen.”

“Twelve feet?” Julie exchanged a glance with Ruth, surveying the course with hands on her hips. “And here we’d just gotten the hang of the vault.”

“Yeah, I just finished pulling the last of the splinters out,” Ruth agreed. “What do you think?” She looked over to Marjorie, standing in the back with her arms crossed, also considering the field.

“I think someone’s going to break a leg,” Marjorie said flatly. “Colonel Sink’s even more of a sadist than Sobel is. And that rope’s what, six feet off the ground? Fine work if you’re tall, but that’s not all of us.” She glanced at Doris, sitting pretty at a pale five three next to Irene’s cool, cloud-brushing five ten.

Ruth scowled. “You can’t tell me he didn’t design this to get us out, Marge.”

“There’s some short fellas, too, Ruth,” Marjorie warned. “We don’t know what he’s thinking.”

That much was true - the obstacle course had been the bane of many existences, short and tall alike, and it was prejudiced in favor of only one thing - building better soldiers. (Better soldiers who needed to be able to do more than stand, sit, and fire a rifle in the general direction of the enemy.)

Every time they ran it, Marjorie silently thanked years of baseball coaches who’d demanded running drills and tucks and rolls as she cleared the ground net, the climbing ropes, the over-and-unders and the balancing log with ease. But here, at last, was the wall - and in front of it, Perconte, jumping, ineffectively, for the rope. “Perco, here.” Marjorie planted her feet and cupped her palms, ready to give him a boost. 

Perconte looked at her with wide eyes. “Are you mental?” 

“Just take it!” she hissed through gritted teeth, probably wearing some version of what her fiance Allen fondly called her 'angry teacher face.' But it worked - Perconte hoisted one boot into her handhold and, using the extra foot of clearance, was finally able to reach the rope and begin the climb over, leaving Marjorie at the base of the wall, arms burning and spattered with mud.

It would have been easy to take the rope and go, and yet- 

On the other side of the wall, Hoobler was huffing a little, struggling to jump for the bottom of the rope, face red. _ Damn me for a compassionate fool. _

"C’mon, Hoob, you can do it. Show that wall who’s boss!”

But it worked - on the next jump up his hand met the rope, and he was up and away, and the next man was coming up behind Marjorie, who stepped out of the way and beat her fist against the boards to give a wild, warrior yell of support. Her time would be terrible - and she didn’t care. They were going to beat this thing if it was the last thing she did, and no one would get left behind because they weren’t six-foot tall Spartans.

Seeing her example, Johnny Martin took point on the other line to give a boost to anyone else, and when the line was finally through Marjorie gave him the last hand up and then scaled the wall herself, sweat beading on her brow, arms straining under her now incredibly dirty PT shirt.

Sobel, waiting at the end of the course with his stopwatch, frowned as Marjorie jogged in, the very last person to finish. “Gordon, you’re slow - and you’re sloppy. Are we not feeding you well enough that you felt the need to eat dirt?”

Marjorie tried to calm her breath and stood up a little taller.  _ And goddamn you, too, sir.  _ “No excuse, sir, I’ll do better next time.”

“See that you do, you’re making me look bad.” Sobel stepped up, using the advantage of his extra inches to look down his nose at her, the posture of two people stepping in for a kiss - if either of them had looked happier about it. “Do you want to make me look bad, Private Gordon?”

“Absolutely not, sir,” Marjorie said, eyes fixed forward. Sobel was far from her favorite person, and she, she knew, was far from his - a fellow collegian who, unlike him, had turned her degree into a real job. Rumor had it that even though he’d matriculated from the University of Illinois, he’d spent the last several years in sales. You could say a lot of things about Herbert Sobel, but if there was one thing Marjorie Gordon had learned in the last week, it was that women like her, women who knew what they wanted, refused to back down and never took no for an answer, absolutely  _ terrified _ him. (He had that in common with her students.)

Sadly, however, unlike her students, he had power - and coupled with his fear, it made him dangerous. Sobel sneered. “I think you do, Private Gordon. Twenty-five push-ups, on the double.”

After helping that many men over, and scaling the wall herself, it was too much, and Sobel knew it - he wanted to see her break, but Marjorie wouldn’t give him the satisfaction, hands triangled on the ground, elbows out to push up to - “One!”

Shoulders burning, she lowered and pushed up again - only to hear two more voices shouting “Two!” in unison with her. A frantic glance forward showed Doris and Joan on the ground in front of her. Marjorie could have beamed - if it had taken less work. Together they did Sobel’s twenty-five pushups, slowly but surely, until they were red with effort. It would have been easy enough to fall down - Doris did so - but Marjorie, at least, wasn’t having it, remaining at plank, body shaking with something that was either fatigue or rage, she couldn’t quite tell herself. Sobel looked disgusted, solidarity a concept he was obviously unfamiliar with. “Fall out.”

It wasn’t until he had turned his back and taken a good ten steps that Marjorie finally collapsed into the dirt, her breathing heavy, pain evident on her face as she rolled over and faced the sky, closing her eyes.  _ Maybe this is it. Death by obstacle course and petty misogynistic bastard. _

From somewhere above her she heard voices. “What?” Perconte sounded defensive.

“Should have been your ass in the dust doing pushups,” Martin suggested, ever so slightly menacing. An aggravated sigh, steps on gravel. The light above her changed. “Hey, you.” Marjorie looked up, squinting in the afternoon sun, and there was Perconte, standing in the sun and holding out a hand. She took it, gratefully, allowing herself to be bodily dragged to her feet. 

“That was good thinking,” Martin offered, coming up behind Perconte with a slightly paternal air, a father watching his son make good. Perconte, unwilling to be drawn in to further conversation, jogged off to join his friends towards the front of the group, leaving Martin and Marjorie behind.

“Thanks,” she managed, massaging her arms. “Maybe not the point of the exercise, though. Next time we should - 

“Stack the line so there’s someone tall in front?” Martin smirked. “Yeah, I was just thinking that.” 

Marjorie smiled, grateful to be understood, and nodded, still trying to recover her breath a little as she inspected her palms and pulled a loose piece of gravel out of the heel of her hand. “Exactly. And who doesn’t mind getting stepped on.”

“I hear you say you don’t mind getting stepped on, Gordon?” Hoobler asked with a grin.

“Not by anyone with your shoesize,” she shot back, dignity a little shaken but sense of humor obviously still firmly in place. Hoots of delight from anyone who could hear, as Hoobler blushed to the tips of his big ears and struggled for a response, finding nothing and deciding it was better to retreat while he still could. 

Martin looked a little impressed by her quick comeback. “Wouldn’t have taken you for a mouth, Gordon.” 

She shrugged. “I taught high school - comes with the territory.”

The Italian looked impressed. “No shit.”

She nodded, falling into step with him as they began their walk back to the main body of camp and the mess hall, the others already well on their way. “Mmhm. Biology. Seems an awful long ways away now. You?”

“Worked for the railroad in Columbus. Steady hours, steady paycheck. Got married, bought an apartment...figured I ought to see some of the world before it ended.” He kicked a pinecone off the road. “You married? You seem the type.”

She shook her head. “Not yet- Army intelligence has him running numbers in a basement somewhere. Very hush hush. Before that he was the math teacher.”

“Bet your students all gave you hell for that,” Martin said with a smile. Marjorie returned the smile, remembering the injured, frustrated looks of her seniors when they realized handsome Mr. Michaelson and Miss Gordon were, as the kids said, an item.  _ Yes, they sure did.  _ “So how does a schoolteacher end up in the army?”

Marjorie gave a shrug of her own. “Oh, a little of this, a little of that. The pay’s terrible, and if we’d gotten married like Allen - my fiance - wanted, I’d have had to quit school anyway. And...like you said. Wanted to see the world before it ended. Didn’t seem right, letting all my students go without sticking my own oar in. Typing reports isn’t really my style, though so, when they put a call out for specialized training, I thought I’d try my luck, thinking maybe they’d...take me for a PT instructor, or something. The recruiter liked me well enough, so...I got sent here.”

“You know Warren before coming in?” Martin asked, somehow still making conversation. Marjorie tried not to look shocked - this was the longest conversation she’d had with any of the men, apart from Lipton, and Martin wasn’t the guy she’d have guessed she was going to have it with. “You two just seem close, is all.”

She’d been doing a poorer job of hiding her feelings than she’d thought. “No, we met on the train,” she clarified, trying to make up for whatever disgust Martin had seen on her face. “Half the car was talking about the latest issue of Vogue and nail colors and five easy ways to curl your hair and then there’s this girl in the back with a sharp crease in her trousers reading a field manual like someone was going to quiz her on it. She seemed a little more my speed. Sat down and found we had a lot in common - college girls, athletes.” Marjorie smiled, remembering the rest of that train ride in nostalgic detail. “Now it seems like I’ve known her forever.”

“Don’t tell me you’re a runner, too.”

She shook her head. “Nah - baseball. Coached it, too. Mean fastball, if you ever need a pitcher.”

The possibilities were bright in Martin’s eyes. “A coach, eh? I could see that. And we may just take you up on that fastball.”

* * *

Teamwork had not been the day’s goal.

Annie had taken one look at Sink's new course obstacle and made the same assumption that she'd heard Griffiths and Shapiro making - that it had been strategically placed to thin the herd. But the one thing that Sink hadn't counted on was that women, for all that they were usually shorter, were also usually better at working in groups. Marjorie Gordon had planted herself at the base of that wall and hadn't moved until she'd made good and sure that every last one of the men and women in her line had made it over, like a good teacher - a good sergeant! - does. And John Martin had followed her lead. That was good. Working together - trusting that the woman in front of you could and  _ would _ give you a boost - that was progress.

They would need a whole lot more of that before they were anything like a unit.

But for now, it was lunchtime, and, while Gordon and the others might have taken refuge in newly forming friendships in the mess hall, Annie was eating alone. 

There were many schoolyard ways of showing one’s indifference - cuts in line, being picked last for the team, mispronouncing a name, affecting deafness when one spoke - and over the last several months she’d seen them all from her fellow officers. She had learned to live with it. Lacking physical weapons, women were often far, far more creative when it came to psychological warfare, and what she’d endured during her own basic training had gone much deeper than merely being talked over could. (Working in teams could cut both ways.) 

When she’d had sole responsibility over the girls it had made sense that she had eaten alone - but now that they’d been absorbed, tradition held that Easy Company’s other officers might encourage her to share a table with them. She wasn’t holding her breath on this - and thus it was something of a surprise when Winters and Nixon came back from the chow line, trays in hand, and stopped at her entirely empty table.

“Mind if we join you?”

Annie looked up from her chicken, trying not to look as suspicious as she felt. “It’s a free mess hall.”

Winters nodded, setting his tray down and settling into his chair as Nixon did the same, the two quietly tucking into their lunch as though this was a regular thing, the three of them sitting together in the officers’ mess.    


“Hell of a thing, that new course obstacle,” Nixon said, to everyone and no one in particular, attempting, very badly, to start a conversation. Annie nodded, her mouth full, and Nixon retreated back into his own meal.

Recent cold shoulders aside, Sutton genuinely liked Easy Company’s lieutenants. New, of course, young, but they were all new and young. Nixon could be a little flashy, a little loud, but by and large he was a good soldier, though privately Annie couldn’t see a day that he’d be leading men in combat. Quick on his feet, certainly, but his talents seemed to tend towards administration, supply and intelligence rather than battlefield command. Nixon remembered things and found patterns, like who had something someone else wanted, or who was from the same town or liked the same sports team, or when someone had parted their hair differently. (He’d been the quickest to learn her girls’ names, though she tended to think his motives in that were not quite the administrative kind.)

Winters, on the other hand, was quiet, methodical - a reader and studier of rules. Of everyone in camp, he was one of the few who did not seem to go out of his way to be unkind to her, and the silence that she’d first taken for disdain she’d found, after a while, to merely be his natural way of interacting with the world. He thought first, and spoke later, and that silence hid a first-rate intellect. And, in strong contrast to his friend, who thought himself God’s gift to women and did not care who knew it, Dick Winters was...almost shy. Reserved might have been a better word - respectful. Separated, they functioned well enough - but together, as friends, they were a formidable pair.

And, perhaps best of all, she got the sense that they disliked Sobel’s methods almost as much as she did. Not publicly or vocally, of course, they were too smart for that, but they had their ways. When Sobel demanded men for a punishment detail, they would simply assign whoever had been next on the list. When they ran Currahee, Winters ran with them, even if he was under no obligation to do so.

Their soldiers would remember that, when the time came to listen to orders. As they’d remember Sobel, who stopped doing push-ups at twenty and rode back to camp in a jeep while the rest of them marched. And she knew the women would remember who’d stood spread-legged over them as they did their crunches, daring them to look up and observe him, and who got down in the dirt and held their feet while they finished a set.

They got through a few more bites in awkward silence before Nixon resumed his efforts at conversation. “We - Dick and I - were wondering if you could help us with something, Lieutenant.”

“I’m not helping you hide his body,” Annie said promptly. Nixon laughed, and even stoic Winters cracked a half a smile over his vegetables, none of them needing to say who ‘he’ was.

“Tempting though that sounds, no, that’s not it,” Nixon said. “We were hoping...you could help us out.”

Annie set down her fork and looked pointedly at Nixon, who looked uncomfortable for a moment and gave one of his apologetic smiles before he attempted to explain himself. “Well, it’s been...a, a week now, more or less, and we...um...we still seem to be coaching two different teams. And we were...wondering if…”

“I could put in a word?” Annie asked. Nixon nodded, grateful that she’d summed it up so succinctly. Annie nodded, considering the matter at hand as though the answer might magically materialize in her half-eaten meal. She knew the answer well enough - she just wasn’t sure either of these men would want to hear it. “Do you have any sisters, Lieutenant Nixon?”

He looked a little taken aback. “One, yeah. Blanche.”

_ Blanche. Of course it is.  _ The name, along with what she knew of Nixon, conjured a definite image: an East Coast rose, pearls and heels and perfect hair, watching from the window as her brother rolled home from college in his letter jacket, blithe and unconcerned with the state of the world - a woman who was being groomed to stay home, mix drinks, and look pretty at corporate parties. Annie knew plenty of women like that - and the pretty smiles usually hid deep wells of underestimated rage. “And does Blanche do anything just because you tell her to? Go on a date with a friend, maybe? Finish your math homework?”

Nixon didn’t look as though he appreciated being treated like he was still in high school. “Well, no, not...not usually.”

“And do  _ you _ do anything when Blanche tells you to do it?”

“No.”

“Well, then, there’s your answer. I’d love to help you, gentleman, but I’m not sure it’s the girls that are the problem. They’re pulling their weight just fine - but the rest of the company doesn’t want them there. Officers included.”  _ Yes, there, I said it. What’s your fancy East Coast father going to do about that, Lewis Nixon the Third? _

“We’re having this conversation, aren’t we?” Nixon offered, still looking profoundly uncomfortable.

“In a mess hall where no one can see,” Annie said pointedly. The two men exchanged glances, realizing she was right. “Obedience can be demanded - I think we all know that. Trust has to be earned. They are learning to trust each other. And there is not a thing you - or I - can do to rush that along.”  _ I saw that today out on the PT course, with Marjorie Gordon covered in mud. I see it when Connie gets a cuff on the shoulders from her mortar team for a job well done. I see it when the group looks to Joan for a map-reading exercise.  _ “But they already trust you - and your judgement.” 

“We should modeling the same behavior ourselves.” It seemed Dick had finally found something to say.

_ I knew I liked you, Richard Winters,  _ Annie thought to herself.  _ You _ _ get it. _ “Precisely.” 

Nixon looked at his best friend with the air of someone who’s just been very quietly betrayed, stewing as he returned to his meal while Winters chewed his chicken thoughtfully, something going on behind those blue eyes of his. Annie picked up her fork and resumed eating, pushing her vegetables around her plate and longing for something that hadn't been boiled to death.

_ Oh, they can do some of it on their own, build that trust, through small favors and shared hometowns. Women like Gordon and Warren can break their backs for it, but that won’t be enough. They need to see you doing it. They need to be led. And what they really need is for someone (and we know who that is) to demand something from those men that they don’t want to give, and demand so strongly that their only action, their only possible choice, is to do the exact opposite. And when they are all firmly united against a shared adversary, then - and only then - is when they’ll really be a team.  _

“Did I hear someone say you were a boxing champ, Lieutenant?”

“Ladies middleweight of Fort Des Moines, ‘38, ‘39, ‘40,” Annie replied, reminding herself not to underestimate Richard Winters’ powers as an intelligence officer.

“Would you help me lead PT tomorrow? We’re supposed to be starting an introduction to combatives.”

Annie’s face curved into a smile, seeing where this conversation might be leading. “I think I have a book I can loan you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> While the rope and wall obstacle mentioned at the beginning was my own invention, the obstacle course featured in this chapter was a real thing - and so formidable it got its own page in the 506th's scrapbook. Colonel Sink _was_ always making changes.
> 
> Your fun food fact of the day: prior to the 1940s, chicken was actually a special occasion food, since a chicken is actually more valuable for eggs than meat. The now-humble white meat didn't become a staple on American dinner tables under after World War Two, when factory farming for the war effort make it more widely and cheaply available. (For more about how dinner tables changed worldwide, Lizzie Collingham's The Taste of War is a must-read.)
> 
> The book Annie will be loaning Winters (if he hasn't read it already) is William Ewart Fairbairn's Scientific Self Defense, published in 1931. Fairbairn worked for the Shanghai Municipal Police for many years and developed his own martial arts practice for use by other policemen, sometimes called 'Defendu'. He would later go on to teach this defense technique to Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and Special Operations Executive (SOE) officers and other Special Forces groups, techniques that would lead some detractors to dubbing the SOE 'the league for ungentlemanly warfare'. Fairbairn is also the progenitor, along with his collaborator Eric Sykes, of the Fairbairn-Sykes fighting knife, similar to the M3 fighting knife issued to Airborne troops. (We see one of these in Winters' boot in 1.1 when he leaves the movies in Upottery.)
> 
> In addition to writing Scientific Self Defense, Fairbairn also published a shorter version of the book especially for women in 1942. It's called Hands Off! and you can read it on Archive.org!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are times when, for whatever reason, you will find yourself on a battlefield facing an enemy without a weapon at hand - which is why today Easy Company is talking about combatives - the art of self-defense. Lieutenant Sutton has even kindly consented to lend her considerable expertise- but there are many varying interpretations of the phrase 'fair play'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It should be realized that in boxing, wrestling, and ju-jitsu competitions, etc., the competitors, in addition to having the spirit of fair play ingrained in them from boyhood, are further protected from foul blows by the presence of a referee, but when dealing with street ruffians, burglars, or armed robbers, one is faced by opponents...who will recognize no bounds so long as their objective is attained...
> 
> -W.E. Fairbairn, Scientific Self Defense, 1931

_ One day I'm going to murder the bugler _ , the old song went - and as time went on, every man and woman in the company was beginning to appreciate the sentiment.

Those with soldier fathers were all too familiar with the sarcastic trills of the last war's "Oh, How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning" as they were dragged from bed for chores and paper routes and shoveling driveways, never dreaming that one day, they, too, would be in their fathers' shoes, and wishing serious ill will on a man with a trumpet.

And here they all were, every day at five-thirty, rolling out of bed flinging various curses as reveille went out, the flag went up, and bunkhouse after bunkhouse prepared for another day of Army branded fun and games.

For Easy Company, that usually meant a wash and a shave before falling into PT formation for one of Sobel’s trademark runs, followed quickly by breakfast and the rest of whatever the day had in store for them. Today, however, as they assembled on the parade ground, Sobel was nowhere to be seen, and in his place were Winters, Nixon - and Sutton, too, dressed in shorts and t-shirts. (Sutton’s shirt, however, said Fort Des Moines, the Athena’s Head of the Women’s Army Corps prominent against the white.)

Winters stepped forward, the company snapping to attention without his saying a word. “There are times when, for whatever reason, you will find yourself on a battlefield facing an enemy without a weapon at hand = which is why today we'll be talking about combatives - the art of self-defense. And to help explain our first lesson, Lieutenant Sutton has kindly consented to lend her considerable expertise."

Sutton nodded, her lips in that same, precise line that seemed to be one of her only expressions. There were sniggers from the usual suspects, Luz and Liebgott, Penkala and Muck. Guarnere leaned over to Martin, murmuring out of the side of his mouth, "What the hell does she know about it? I thought all the WACs rode desks."

"I think we're about to find out," Martin said, glancing over at Marjorie Gordon and the rest of the girls, and wondered to himself why they were smiling as if they knew something the men didn't.

"Today's lesson,” Sutton began, picking up where Winters left off, “will be broken in two parts. First, we'll practice hand-holds and breaks - then, after breakfast, throws and falls. We'll be practicing with the knife in a later lesson, once you've mastered these. But first, we thought we might do a demonstration of a few of the techniques we'll be attempting today. Lieutenant Winters will attack first."

A few elbows and some side-eyes, the men, on the whole, judging this would be easy work for the company’s favorite lieutenant. What chance did a woman have against a man a good six inches taller than her? But the women were still smiling, too. Sutton took a position at rest - a soldier on guard duty. 

Winters came from behind, wrapping both arms around her body, pinning her arms in - and just as quick came Sutton's foot down on one of his boots, and one very determined elbow to the side of his ribs. They disengaged -she turned and punched, he parried and grabbed her arm to throw her off balance. She broke the hold - he tried again, and she neatly pinned his arm into a lock and used his remaining forward momentum to flip him over her knee, bringing the tall redhead crashing to the ground in front of her.

For a moment, there was only stunned silence, followed by a few scattered claps, the group scarcely believing what they had just seen. Lieutenant Sutton - Lieutenant Annie Sutton, five-seven in her stocking feet and with nothing of the bantam fighter about her, had successfully brought Dick Winters to the ground as easily as kiss your hand.

Sutton grinned (grinned?! But there it was) and helped Winters up, saying something the rest of them couldn’t hear - but he was smiling, too. Had they planned this? "The first lesson of combatives," he offered to the group, dusting off his shorts, still smiling, "is to never assume that you know your opponent. Lieutenant Sutton is the reigning boxing champion of Fort Des Moines - and she's stronger than she looks," he said, rubbing the shoulder that had taken the fall for effort. There were nervous chuckles from the men and outright grins from the women. “She’s also been teaching these techniques to her soldiers for five years - they come quickly and naturally through practice that I do not have - yet.”

"And we should give the Lieutenant some credit - he was a state wrestling champion in college," Sutton added. “So he knows how to take a fall and get up again. We did not rehearse that little ditty, by the way - and I suspect he could have gone a few more rounds, despite that shoulder." More chuckles - a little more widespread this time, but some eye-rolls, too, of course they rehearsed that, there's no way that Winters would lose, he threw it to be nice. 

But Winters knew what was up - as he always did. “Now, I'm sure you’re all thinking that Lieutenant Sutton made that look very easy - so we’re putting it to you. Try it out.”

The group began partnering off, but Sutton stepped in before the whole thing was divided on the basis of sex. “Ladies, I already know you can pull each others' hair. Break it up. Hoobler, you’re with Henderson. Schmidt, and, ah, Wynn here, Gordon -” Marjorie moved subtly in Martin’s direction, and Sutton nodded approvingly, though Guarnere shot his friend a look of pure betrayal.  _ What, just because she was helpful yesterday you get to be all friendly now? _ All around him the fellows were paired off while he floated, alone, until Sutton, going down the rest of the women, said, “Warren, why don’t you partner Guarnere?”

Bill couldn’t believe his luck. (Well, on second thought, getting Hammond would have been lucky - sadly, that particular joy had gone to Don Malarkey, who could not believe that he was being asked - asked! - to manhandle the prettiest woman in the company.) But Saint Joan, for a fighting exercise? This was going to be a breeze. She could run, sure, but what would Little Miss Society Pages know about fighting? A cat fight, _maybe_ , but any snotty-nosed kid could pull hair and poke eyes. She nodded in greeting. "Guarnere."

He returned the nod, considering his options. She was half a head taller, but skinny - and he knew he was stronger. A good, solid bear-hug from the front was for the best. None of this duck and dodge bullshit the Lieutenants had demonstrated - bear hug, push to ground, and then one good right hook ought to lay her out, and he'd be sitting pretty for the rest of class. The usual prohibitions on hitting girls had been suspended the minute they'd signed up for the paratroopers. That, in his mind, made anything fair game.

But bearhug first. Let her try and get out of that.

“All right, class - go!”

No sooner had Joan planted her feet than Bill lunged forward, pinning her arms around her sides and hands connecting around her back - but there was barely any time to smirk and appreciate his victory before he was simultaneously getting a kick to the inside of his shin, Joan's forehead connecting with his, and one hand giving a solid and unwelcome jerk with a clawed hand in between his legs as though she firmly intended to tear something off. He lost his grip and stumbled back, doubled over, and suddenly there was a thump between his shoulders and he was on the ground, sore, hurting, and more than a little angry. 

He rolled onto his back, knees up a little by instinct, half-afraid she’d kick him, too. "That ain't fair!"

Winters, passing by, gave the complaint short-shrift. "It's war, Guarnere, nothing's fair. Nice work, Warren."

“Thank you, sir.”

From the ground, Bill nursed his injured privates and considered the field - a few fellows with sore jaws, or shoulders - there had been some punches - smarting wrists and banged up ribs. But none of the people on the ground were women. "You've never had someone feel you up on the subway," Eileen was telling Malarkey tartly as he rotated a smarting foot. "It's one of the first things they teach you when you start wearing skirts - and it would have been worse if I'd been in heels."

He turned over the other way and was met, once more, with Joan. But far from playing the smirking, conquering hero, her expression was...almost embarrassed, sticking out her arm to help him up. "Sorry about that," she offered, apologetic. "Self-defense class in college. Won’t let you take a date off-campus without it."

"They teach you how to go around grabbing guys in the nuts?" Bill asked, incredulous, still sore as she helped him to his feet.  _ What else don’t I know about fancy girls’ schools?  _

"If you don’t like where he’s going, more or less." She paused. “And the next step really _ is _ to kick him while he’s down.”

_ Jesus.  _ “Remind me never to date a college girl.”

She rolled her eyes and held out her arms, ready to go again. “Well, come on,” she said, when Bill did not move. “Fair’s fair. Kick to the instep, forehead to head, and - well, a punch to the ribs works too. Nice and low -” she demonstrated where the blow was to hit on her abdomen, “so you knock the wind out.”

Bill didn’t quite believe what he was hearing - but no one ever had to tell him twice about revenge, and Joan Warren took her knocks like a champ, Miss Society Pages no more, stumbling back to recover her breath. “That was -” she paused to cough. “That was good. Anyone ever tell you have a really hard head?” she asked, holding her hand to a developing sore spot on her forehead.

“All the time,” Bill said with a smile. _Smokey was right - s_ _he's alright, our Saint Joan._

With most of the company now good and sore, (and a few old scores settled besides) Winters and Sutton demonstrated hand-holds and breaks, walking in between the rows as they drilled Fairbairn’s ungentlemanly warfare into their palms, and heels, and the pointest parts of their elbows, how to plant your feet and lead with your shoulder.

“Is it working?” Winters asked, quietly, passing Sutton as they lapped the company, checking on progress. 

Annie looked around - at Marjorie and Martin, trying to sequence a few of the movements into a pattern, like they did weapons checks, at Eileen, who was the most serious Sutton had ever seen her, brow furrowed, determined to learn this new kind of dance line, at Ruth, who was trying to get creative with a hold for Randleman, easily twice as tall as she was, at Joan, in at the thick of it, squaring Christiansen’s shoulders like a pro and leading him into the move while three or four of the surrounding pairs watched - including Bill, who now had a sort of proprietary joy that his partner was the one everyone was looking to for advice, all bygones about the whole ‘kick him while he’s down’ business forgotten.

It’s a funny thing, repeatedly knocking a man down and helping him up again, and then letting him knock you down, and have him help you up, and laugh about it after - it breaks down more walls than it puts up. And Annie Sutton allowed herself a smile. “It just might be.”

At breakfast, there was no longer a separate girl’s table - Guarnere had seen to that, wanting the full effect for his retelling of the morning’s events. “And then bam, Saint Joan's getting handsy with me!” He paused for maximum effect. “Speaking of which, you, ah, like what you find down there, Warren?” he asked, grinning over his oatmeal.

Joan snorted - a very undignified sound - and sipped her coffee, putting up with the retelling with patient amusement. “That's the closest I will ever get to your privates, Guarnere, unless you want another boot to the foot.”

It would have annoyed a different kind of man, but all Bill did was laugh. “Get a load of this chick!”

“They really teach you all that in college?” Martin wanted to know.

“I would have thought that was another Uncle Jack,” Doris put in, as Joan shook her head and dug into her oatmeal.

“Wait, wait, wait,” Bill said aloud, holding up a hand before the conversation could go elsewhere. “Who the hell is Uncle Jack?”

Joan, amused that this was a topic of conversation, finished chewing and swallowed. “He’s my uncle, he is - was - career army, and when I was going to school, I spent a lot of time at his house near DC when I couldn’t go home for the holidays. He taught me how to shoot, and...I don’t know, he’s a big part of why I wanted to join up.”

“And anytime we find out that Joan is good at something, Uncle Jack is usually involved,” Doris explained.

“And he let you?” Martin asked, still skeptical. “Even after all those nice expensive schools?”

“He was really proud when I told him I’d volunteered for the paratroopers,” Joan said with a shrug. “He used to say that the Warrens hadn’t missed a war since Washington crossed the Delaware, and that we should be proud of that. And I’ll be the first woman. So there’s ....no pressure at all.” That got a few laughs, and Bill returned, once more, to the highlight reel.

It was a renewed and reinvigorated group that came back to the parade field for the rest of PT, laughing and joking in a way that had seemed almost impossible yesterday. That is, until the CO arrived with his usual scowl firmly in place. 

“Just what are you doing with my company, Lieutenant Sutton?” Sobel asked. “I got some reports that they were...fraternizing.”

_ Lord alone only knows what that means,  _ Annie thought to herself, wondering who had given Sobel such a report _. _ “Combatives, sir,” she said aloud, aware that behind Sobel, Winters was standing with his lips pressed into a very tight and very angry line - just about the only expression of dislike he ever allowed himself. It was fine. She could handle it. 

“Combatives. Really. That's not on the proscribed PT table. ” Sobel looked around for his next victims, his eye landing on Eileen and Malarkey near the front. “Ah, Glamour Girl and Private Bullshit. Get up here.”

They stepped to the front of the group, well aware that when Sobel’s nicknames came out, it was usually to single their owners out for some special humiliation. "Why don't you show me, and the rest of these fine folks, what you've learned so far this morning?" Sobel said, a bored, unimpressed look on his face.

Malarkey, at least, was a little tongue-tied, but Eileen was a performer down to her bones, and a little intimidation wasn't going to phase her. "Well, sir, we've done, ah, simple wrist releases - by rolling the arm towards the thumb, sir, like this." She demonstrated on Don, grabbing his wrist so he could pull away, rolling his wrist out against the weakest part of her grip. 

"How cute," Sobel said flatly. "The next time a German soldier won't let you leave the lunch table you'll be ready."

Eileen swallowed. "We...we also did - did strangles," she motioned to her throat, and Malarkey wrapped his hands around it, intentionally loose. It was Eileen who had reminded them all of the first rule of stage combat, to keep eye-contact with your partner for silent communication, and her eyes were talking a mile a minute with Malarkey. "Which you...you break by bringing your arms down on his elbows, because that's the, the weakest part of the arm - like so." 

The CO continued to look unimpressed, and Eileen went on, through shoulder holds and breaks, bear hugs from the front and behind, and finally, coat holds and belt holds. It was a good summary - Eileen had learned her lessons well, and she and Malarkey worked well as a team, of similar enough height and build that they were a good match for such a demonstration. Sobel nodded, still unimpressed, and finally picked up a rifle from the nearby rack Sutton had brought out during breakfast for the second part of the lesson, and slung it over his shoulder, the least likely candidate for guard duty in the history of warfare. "Why don't you show me that last one again? Come on, don't be shy."

The air seemed to tighten, the company collectively holding its breath. It was one thing to share a general space with Sobel, another thing to do so while knowing that he hated your guts - but to be ordered into what was, at its core, a terrible kind of intimacy? Especially if you were a woman who had made little secret of the fact that you did not care at all for him? Eileen's resolve was slipping a little, but she stepped up to the mark and wrapped her hand around his belt buckle. He chuckled. "You like that, do you?” Her eyes were fixed on his collarbone. “You look at me when I give you instructions, Private Hammond," he said, almost lazily, and she moved her gaze up to his face, saying nothing, her jaw set. "And what am I supposed to do here, again?" he asked, sizing her up a little, his voice trying to suggest that she were preparing to take the belt off, not take a blow.

"A blow to the face, the side of the neck, or the ears, depending on what you're most prepared for.” She swallowed. “Though I may hit you first if you keep looking at me like that, sir.”

Immediately the smile dropped, and in one swift movement, the heel of his hand connected with her nose with a sickening sound, the blow landing with intent to harm. She dropped, and he swung the rifle off his shoulder and brought the butt of the gun down, hard, against her kidneys. There wasn't even time to gasp. Malarkey didn't know what to do, and neither did the rest of the company. For a moment, no one moved, Eileen lying on the ground like a wounded animal. It was Joan who first ran over, ready to pick her up - or bodily defend her, if that was what it took. 

“That’s what you’re going to need, gentlemen,” Sobel said, sneering as he stepped towards them. “Brute force.” He turned back to Eileen, but Annie was too quick, standing between her soldiers and Sobel as Eileen tried to get up, fists already clenched. This had stopped being a lesson, or anything like it, a long time since.

"I think you've made your point, Captain," she said, coldly. 

The Captain’s face was curiously blank. "Good," he said. "Private, that PT gear is army property, kindly stop bleeding on it."

Eileen, now sitting up in Joan's arms, her nose gushing blood and her whole face a crimson mess, looked up at him with what everyone else in the company could only describe as determination, her voice slightly distended. "Yes, sir."

Sutton swung into action. "Warren, take her to the infirmary, that nose is broken. Malarkey, go with 'em." They did not need telling twice, Eileen still a little unsteady on her feet. Sutton stared at Sobel, daring him to defy her, as the rest of the company stood back, torn between awe and terror, more than one man or woman silently begging to see what the three time middleweight boxing champion of Fort Des Moines could do to Herbert Sobel’s smug, arrogant face.

Don, Joan and Eileen did not return to drill that afternoon, and the rest of Easy ran Currahee without them in silent, barely-contained rage, staring daggers into Sobel's back for the entire run, and when he shouted “Where do we run?” not a single person answered, and he did not try the same trick again. In fact, practically no one spoke for the rest of the day, their responses confined to sullen ‘yes, sirs’ and ‘no, sirs’. Dinner was a solemn affair, hardly anyone hungry, moving food around their plates while they considered that the bloody nose could have been any of them, the bruised ribs theirs for the taking if a single man among them had dared consider talking back to Sobel.

* * *

In the officer’s quarters that night, Annie stared at her letter to Lillian, unable to think. What had she done? Who was she kidding? Had she pushed too hard? Should she have given up earlier, called it quits and let them fade into powdered, permed pin-ups without becoming soldiers first? Should she have gone to Sink and demanded he be dismissed? What sort of message did this send, if they were going into war afraid of being hit? What would happen to them when they went to Europe, if these were the kind of men who would lead them?

The empty page offered little comfort, and her bed little rest. She wanted to cry, to scream into the darkness - to punch Sobel until her fists were raw. Some orders were not meant to be obeyed - and some orders should never have been given. It was a truly petty tyrant who didn’t know the difference.

A knock on the door brought her back to her senses, and she wiped her eyes and her nose, sniffling before she went to answer the door.

It was Winters, a towel around his neck, on the way to or from the bathroom. “Nix just came back from the infirmary. They reset her nose, but it's going to need to stay bandaged for a few weeks. Ribs are bruised, too. But she's doing fine. She'll live."  Annie nodded, the news scant comfort. Hammond had been a chorus girl, a model - her face was her fortune. What did she have to go back to if that was gone?

"You said he’d ask for what they wouldn’t give,” he added, almost as if he were thinking out loud. Annie nodded, her hand on the door. “He wanted their self-respect - to make them just like him.” He paused. “I will not let him take that. An officer never puts himself in a position to take anything from his...soldiers.”

Annie sniffled again, nodded.  _ You were going to say men, _ she thought to herself, _ and you stopped. But you’re right - and when you say it, I believe you, Dick Winters, and that means something, at least to me. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a good solid week of watching vintage US army training films, I can tell you with absolute certainty that this is not the way to run a training class. The audience will please forgive the historical oversight.
> 
> A lot of the stage business fighting for this chapter comes from Fairbairn's Strategic Self Defense, quoted at the beginning of the chapter, but also a training video from the British Commandos called Gutter Fighting. You can watch it on Youtube.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Get ready for your closeups - Stars and Stripes has sent a reporter to do a full page spread - with photos! - on the 506 and their new training program, and Sink's selected Easy Company for the honor of being profiled.

The next day Eileen Hammond reported for morning PT with a taped nose and a horribly purpled face, a whole brace of bandaging visible underneath her shirt. Sobel only smirked and gave Eileen KP duty for an ‘unsoldierly appearance’, as jaws clenched and fists tightened in the back ranks. “I’m gonna kill him,” Guarnere promised through gritted teeth.

“Get in line,” came Joan’s murmured reply. 

Annie Sutton had once called her girls ‘pretty tough bitches’, and if it hadn’t been true then, it was surely true now. It would take more than a busted nose and a few bruises to keep them down, if it meant only that they could rub their success in Sobel’s smug, arrogant face.

And that about summed it up. After the Eileen episode, what little respect the company, men and women alike, had for their CO vanished, the women hardened by it, the men disgusted, and their sole reason for existence was now pure, unmitigated spite, any excellence they achieved now no longer for Herbert Sobel, but for themselves alone. And their response to anyone who asked was clear - _Who wounds one, wounds all._

An army camp is a constantly changing thing, the comings and goings from Camp Cow, the arrival and departure point for regimental replacements, providing a steady stream of new faces, usually slack-jawed newbies in civies dragging their duffles across the grounds and watching, amazed, as a company of troopers went flying by on quicktime march, perfectly in step.

Some of these new men made the mistake of whistling as the girls went by. It was a mistake most of them only made once.

But usually they were in groups, and usually they weren’t already in uniform - or lounging on the steps of the camp office. Doris glanced across the parade ground one morning as they fell into formation after their run and elbowed Joan. "Who on earth is that?"

The who was a handsome (and very disorderly) man in khaki, garrison cap tilted precariously on his head, sweat stains clearly visible through the band, tie loose and sleeves rolled in the late summer heat. A very large packing case sat at the ground near his feet, THIS END UP HANDLE CAREFULLY PRESS stenciled neatly on the side.

"Whoever he is, he's going to get gigged for that tie," Joan observed quickly. His CO clearly wasn’t worrying about ‘unsoldierly appearances’ - and he wasn’t at home in the heat. He appeared to be... waiting for something - though what that was could be anyone’s guess.

It was Nixon, and not Sobel, who met them, quickly and quietly conferring with Winters a moment, the XO squinting at his friend like he didn’t quite understand what Nixon was asking him. He made a movement as if to say “What, now?” and Nixon shrugged. Winters pursed his lips and waved a hand, and Nixon jogged back from whence he had come - not the officer’s mess, or the barracks, but the camp commander’s office - not one of his usual haunts.

“What the hell is going on?” Majorie asked quietly.

“Search me,” Randleman replied out of the side of his mouth. “As long as Sobel’s not here to make us run the damn hill again.”

It was a surprise to all, then, when it was Sink himself who emerged, with Sobel in quickstep on his heels, and another officer, faintly melting in his uniform, trailing behind, Nixon bringing up the end of this strange parade, a clipboard in hand. The company barely needed to be called to attention at the appearance of the 506th’s commander, though more than one of the women groused quietly that he could have at least let them shower before this command performance.

"This here," Sink indicated the man behind him, who tried to stand up a little taller at being so addressed, "is Second Lieutenant Roger Strickland. He’s a reporter with Stars and Stripes, and he's been sent here to do an article on the 506 and our training program - and as the company with the best PT record, I've selected Easy Company for the honor of being featured in the article." 

Glances were exchanged. No one for a single moment doubted the PT record, but everyone, in some small way, wondered if there were not some other force at work here in selecting Easy to be the poster children for the 506. That unspoken reason might have gone a ways to explaining why Sink, usually the regiment’s biggest cheerleader, did not look particularly happy about this press coverage - and why Sobel, behind him, looked similarly annoyed.

"Lieutenant Strickland and his photographer will accompany the unit for the day,” Sink was now explaining, more for the benefit of the assembled cadre of officers than the men. Winters and Sutton were flushed in their PT gear, Sobel and Nixon crisp and clean despite the heat, and Strickland obviously suffering under his jacket and crush cap, even at this early hour. "They'll need some action shots - the obstacle course would be my preference, and maybe the company running in formation. And we'll clear the hangar so you can get a few shots there of harness practice, and then find somewhere for him to conduct some interviews." He looked them in the eye, scanning the front rank, and everyone tried to stand up a little straighter. His eye fell on Eileen, still, after a week, looking like she’d already been through the war, and his eyes narrowed. “Keep Private Hammond there out of the pictures, will you? We don’t need another concerned mother writing her congressman.”

Jaws tightened and fists clenched, the urge to move in and take Eileen’s shoulder strong. Sink, thank goodness, hadn’t noticed the ripple of resentment go through the company - though Sobel was smirking, somewhat, behind him. Sink turned back to the ranks. “I don’t have to tell any of you that there are going to be a lot of eyes on this - and I know that you will represent your company, and this regiment, well. Dismissed.”

“Hey,” Joan said quickly, coming up behind Eileen and catching her shoulder. “At least we know they won’t put Sobel on the cover.”

“Yeah,” said Malarkey, catching the general drift. “Who’d want to look at his ugly mug?”

Eileen smiled, trying not to look too downhearted about the whole thing. The tape would come off soon, and the worst of the swelling was gone, but there was still a bump in her once aristocratic looking nose that Hollywood would not be pleased with. “Please. If I wanted to model, I’d have stayed in L.A.”

Joan patted her shoulder. “Attagirl.”

* * *

It was a testament to the toughness of Sobel’s training that by the end of the day, both the cameraman and the reporter were wilting heavily in the heat, all pretense of formal uniforms abandoned for loose ties and rolled sleeves. The enlisted men and women snickered as they ran their drills, demonstrated riser training, and took another pass at Sink’s hellish obstacle course three times over so the cameraman could get several different shots, huffing in the afternoon sun as he did nothing more than manhandle his camera between obstacles. It was a nice reminder of how far they’d all come, straggling in from the train with their suitcases all those weeks ago. (No one struggled up the rope wall now, and everyone looked to the soldier in front of him or her to see if they needed help.)

“How do you all handle this heat?” Strickland asked, pulling up a chair with Winters, Nixon, and Sutton at the end of the day, tucking gratefully into dinner with a relish that not even the officers, who’d also been running around all day in the dog-tiring heat with their soldiers, could summon. The cameraman had been relegated to eat with the company, a welcome change for him, but Strickland’s rank was still a commission, so it was the officer’s mess for him - and thus his entertainment now also fell to them.

“Just takes some getting used to,” Nixon offered, very clearly trying not to snigger through Strickland’s horrible table manners. “Have everything you need for your article?”

“I hope so. Bob got some good shots, I think. That obstacle course sure is something, huh? Mighty glad they didn’t have that in my basic training.” He continued shoveling, and Winters shared a silent glance with Sutton that conveyed what they both thought about the standards set by Strickland’s basic training. He was talkative, this second lieutenant from Springfield, Illinois - a graduate of the Northwestern School of Journalism, a man who’d only volunteered, he said, because he’d heard draftees didn’t get assignments like the newspaper. A kid, really, who hadn’t done much of his growing up yet. (He was only a few months younger than Winters and Nixon, and after spending the day with him, it felt like decades. Was this what the paratroopers were going to do to them?)

“So, do you think they'll do it?” Strickland asked, talking out of half a mouthful of chipped beef.

“Do what?” Nixon asked, still trying not to snigger and not really trusting his fellows to not give the man a hard time.

Strickland swallowed. "Actually send women into combat?” He took a sip of his water, oblivious that the temperature around the table had dropped considerably. “They're pretty tough ladies, far as I can tell, but, I dunno, when the bullets start flying and people start bleeding, what's to stop 'em from -" 

"Those women have already seen more blood and know more about pain than you can imagine, Lieutenant, and all of it's been their own," Annie said coolly. “I don’t think you have to worry about that at all.” The lieutenant looked at her and blanched, this side-eyed reference to 'lady things' and 'that time of the month' hitting square in the stomach.

"Oh-okay, but firing guns and killing people? I just don't see 'em having the guts."

"Have you ever killed a man, Lieutenant Strickland?" It was Dick who asked the question this time, not Annie, though she looked like she had been prepared to - and grateful that someone else had done so.

"No."

"Has it ever been asked of you?"

Stronger man than Strickland had broken until the force of that glare, and he wasn’t used to it - the man was fairly cowering in his seat. "No."

"Then I don't think you know _what_ you'd do, let alone what _they'd_ do," Dick said with an air of finality. Strickland looked at Lewis for support, but Lewis wasn't playing - he gave one of his trademark shrugs, deferring to Dick, and the table returned, for a few moments, to uneasy silence.

“Your interviews go okay?” Nixon asked, once Strickland had marinated for a little while in his own abject terror.

“Yeah, I, uh...Carwood Lipton, and, ah, Marjorie Gordon, that good-looking -” Winters’ eyes flashed, and Strickland quickly reconsidered his life choices. “- ahem, that teacher from Minnesota, and the, um, girl from Tennessee, Henson? Henderson? And a couple of the kids from Cali, Grant, and Bryant, and, ah, Talbert.” Strickland was treading water, and he looked like he knew it. “Real all-American team you’ve got here.”

“That’s the 82nd.” Strickland looked at Lewis. “The All Americans,” Nixon repeated, as if he hadn’t been clear enough the first time. “That’s the nickname of the 82nd Division. The 101st is the Screaming Eagles - and Sink will have your head for a paperweight if you mix ‘em up.”

The journalist nodded, finally getting the read on the room, and returned, in silence, to what remained of his dinner and his now-tattered dignity.

* * *

There was a knock on Annie’s door that evening - Nixon this time, fresh from showing the journalist and his cameraman back to the train station for the 10 o'clock sleeper back to DC and his press deadline.

“I have a little intelligence about our friend Strickland.”

“Oh yeah?” Annie asked, leaning against her door. Lewis Nixon had grown on her a little in the last couple of days, and though she still thought him a spoiled rich boy, she had been forced to retire her assessment that he could not be trusted with a secret.

“Well, for starters, we terrified the bejesus out of that poor son of a bitch,” Lewis said, almost pleased with himself. “Which is, fine, whatever, Yale can beat Northwestern at football any day of the week. But I _was_ reading his notes over his shoulder for a bit, and the kid _can_ write. I think it’ll be a good article.” 

“Good.” Annie paused, not knowing what else to say. “Was ...that it?”

Lewis shook his head, an almost irrepressible smile on his lips. “Forget the PT record - he came with that assignment in hand. Straight from Washington and the Army press office.”

She stood up a little taller, now _very_ interested in what he had to say. “Is that so?”

“Yep. Turns out you and the Army's little experiment are good for business,” he smirked. “Recruiting is up more than a few percentage points. _And_ Sink's got a letter on his desk from Colonel Hobby herself, asking how soon she can get more recruits down here. She’s saying she hopes those numbers go higher once there's some good press out. That if the girls can pack parachutes there's no good reason why they shouldn't know how to use 'em, too.”

Colonel Hobby - Colonel Oveta Culp Hobby, the head of the _entire_ Women’s Army Corps, was writing to Sink? “So, is she thinking...another platoon?”

“She's talking _three whole companies_ ,” Lewis confirmed, his own joy pretty irrepressible at this point. “And she wants _Captain_ Sutton to lead one of 'em.”

Annie stared. “...Captain?”

"Bars are in the mail,” Nixon said with a grin, holding out his hand for her to shake. “Congratulations on the promotion - well deserved.”

Annie would have been radiant with joy - if she hadn’t learned long ago that words were easy and actions hard. “Where'd you get all of this?” she asked, trying to be cagey, knowing that Nixon liked a joke but also knowing that he wasn’t committed to his pranks enough to come up with a story this big just to get a rise out of her.

"Oh, a little of this, a little of that. You can find out all kinds of things when a man leaves his mail on his desk," Nixon said, still grinning. “Oh, and he's making Sobel give one of the girls sergeant’s stripes. So it'll look good in the corrections column, if we don't catch Strickland before it goes to print. Gender equality, equal opportunities and all that. He’s got a statement, it’s very cute. "

Annie nodded, still processing all of this. Captain Sutton! How long had she looked forward to this, put in her time and made sure to cross her ts and dot her is! She'd have to write Lil - no, maybe she'd spend the money and call. The long distance charge would be worth it. Captain Sutton! Three companies! A letter from Colonel Hobby herself that mentioned her by name! 

The simple truth was that this - all of this- had all been one big delaying game - that the longer they fought with Sobel, the less likely it was that the Army could - would! - get rid of them. And by demanding excellence, Sobel had created exactly what Sink did not want - women who would not fail. And as long as they fought, as long as they held their line, the more comfortable everyone had gotten with their being there. Not just the Easy guys - the whole Army. And more would come. 

_Captain_ Sutton would still be a training officer, though. Would not be going to Europe. Would be leaving her girls after jump school to come back and do the same thing all over again. She'd known it would happen, but in the interim, as they'd dealt with Sobel, it had almost slipped her mind. It was September; infantry units were already in England discussing the push into North Africa, the 1st Marine was trying to hold Guadalcanal, the British were entrenched in Burma, the Soviets were fighting German panzers on the Don. The war churned on - and they were slowly, surely, churning towards it.

"So it's Benning next week, then?" She asked, trying to focus, once more, on what she could control - on the days ahead, on her soldiers and their training, on making them men and women who could face the war wherever they were sent - Australia or the Aleutians or El Alamein.

Lewis nodded. "It's Benning - after this silly Olympics thing Sink's got us doing. Winner takes all and gets to be jumpmaster on the first officers’ jump.” He tapped his book on the palm of his hand. “You gonna try for it? My money’s on you or Dick to win the thing.”

“Save your money, he’s faster than I am,” Sutton admitted. _And he deserves the praise. Sobel might be cracking the whip, but Dick Winters is the one who’s really holding this outfit together._

* * *

"Say, who's this Lieutenant Speirs, anyway?" Marjorie asked, trying to make herself heard over the din of several hundred cheering soldiers. The day had finally arrived for Colonel Sink’s Olympics, simultaneously a way to celebrate the achievements of the men and give their officers a chance to show off a little, too. The whole camp had a kind of fairground feel, with the white tape marking off the field where they’d be performing their exercises and the shouting, whistling spectators. Sink had trucked in cases and cases of gleaming bottles of soda pop, and there was a rumor that dinner this evening would be hotdogs, just like the kind you got at the ballpark.

"I'm not sure, but he's my new hero," Ruth said with a gleam in her eye, very clearly admiring something that was not his face. "He's making Sobel look like an absolute chump." 

"He's with Dog Company," Joan supplied, joining them at the side of the field to watch the action, sipping a Coke. “And anyone could make Sobel look like a chump.”

"I still don't get why they didn't make you sergeant," Marjorie said, moving over a little so Joan could get a piece of the view and inspecting the new stripes on her jacket with care. "You were a shoe-in. Sergeants know things, you know things."

"Oh, I'm sure Sobel had some chickenshit reason - that I'm not a team player, or I'm mouthy, or he didn’t like the way I looked at him after he hit Eileen. Who knows? " Joan shrugged, trying to remain unbothered by it. "And stop selling yourself short - you know plenty, and you’ll be great.”

"And if you don't know it, you can use that teacher voice to order us around until one of us tells you," Johnny Martin added with a grin, joining the girls at the tape line, as Sobel struggled through his push-ups, red in the face. "Congrats, again,” he said, offering his hand to shake. “You write Allen about it yet?" 

Marjorie shook her head. “Haven’t had time, between packing and this. You write Pat about yours?” Martin shook his head, his stripes just as fresh as hers. “I just can’t believe it. We made it. We’re really going to jump school.”

Martin smiled and took a sip of his own soda, considering Sobel, just touching down on his thirtieth push-up, utterly worn out where Spiers looked fresh as a daisy. “Yeah, we’re really going, aren’t we?”

No one quite knew what it all meant - but in the moment, there was sunshine, and soda pop, and life looked like it might start picking up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, my apologies, this chapter's kind of a filler.
> 
> Notes! 
> 
> Stars and Stripes was (and remains!) the newspaper of the Army. It's been published as far back as the Civil War, and was revived in April of 1942. Strickland is fictional, but the reporters for S&S are always soldiers - something Strickland should appreciate, being a Northwestern grad. The Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern was endowed by Colonel Robert R. McCormick, the owner and editor of the Chicago Tribune, who used the Paris offices of his own newspaper to help print a special Army Edition of the Tribune during during World War One.
> 
> The real Oveta Culp Hobby was the head of the Women's Army Corps from 1942 (ish) to 1945, and would have recognized the value of good press - in her pre-war life, she was a journalist and newspaper owner herself, and was noted, during her tenure, for giving 'women's news' a wider circulation in her papers. I've obviously given her the WAC job a little bit earlier here. 
> 
> The dish being served in the officer's mess is a real one - "Beef, dried, chipped, or sliced on toast", #55 in Technical Manual 10-405, The Army Cook, is also sometimes lovingly referred to as 'SOS' - for 'shit on shingle.' It's very messy to eat, so we may have to forgive Strickland his terrible table manners. 
> 
> The scene at the end, of Sink's Olympics, is based on a scene that was scripted (and cut) from the show. It would have been the first time we'd seen Speirs onscreen.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So you want to be a paratrooper? Good! That means you're brave. But you're going to find out there's a lot more to it than breathtaking leaps out of flying transports.
> 
> Fort Benning, Georgia, is where the US Army goes to Jump School - and that's where Easy Company's headed. It's where the going gets tough - and the tough, as they say, get going...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So you want to be a paratrooper? Good! That means you're brave. But you're going to find out there's a lot more to it than breathtaking leaps out of flying transports.
> 
> You've got to learn a technique. By the time you've finished your parachute jump training, you'll be surprised to find the accent on technique, rather than on courage - for a good jumper is a skilled jumper, and it's the skilled jumper who can land in one unbroken piece, and carry out the mission that he jumps for.
> 
> -US Army Training Film # T.F. 31-1231, “Parachute Jump Training”

_ So now you're in for four tough weeks of concentrated training. Your first week, A Stage, is jam packed with physical conditioning, and begins where the usual training ends. Each exercise develops muscles you'll need for parachute manipulation and landing. _

* * *

Everyone had said that after Benning, Toccoa would seem like a walk in the park.

Sink had read them the riot act before they’d boarded the train about the training officers and non-coms being the best in the army, but after two days of outrunning, outwitting, and outlasting them, Easy Company was beginning to wonder if this had been Sink’s idea of a joke - or if the last three months of Sobel’s sadism had actually been good for something, and they really were just that good.

“I heard Weldon complaining yesterday that we were too fast,” Christiansen said, grinning as they sat down on the floor of the gymnasium in front of the 6 climbing ropes, mats squeaking under their boots.

“What, because you and Joan outran him?” Irene asked with a grin of her own.

“Mighta had something to do with it,” the tall Californian said, looking extremely pleased with himself as he and Joan exchanged grins. 

“Easy Compa-ny!” The group sat up and took notice as Sergeant Weldon, one of their training officers, stepped to the front of the room, ready to begin the day’s exercise. “As we continue your training with the harness, it’s important that you all become familiar with the basics of climbing a rope. This will serve you well as a test of your arm strength, but also in the event of a tree landing, when your reserve chute can be used as a rope.” 

Some smiles, a few nods, the group trying to work out the mechanics of how a reserve (fastened to the belly) could possibly compare to a climbing rope.

“Now, it’s come to my attention,” Weldon added, “that Easy Company seems to think there’s not a whole lot they can learn from us Fort Benning old salts.” A few chuckles, here and there. “So we’re putting it to you. Pick a soldier, and let’s see who can get up this rope the fastest.”

A tall order, a thirty foot rope. Everyone had less than fond memories of Colonel Sink’s ropes obstacles, but this was different. There was muted conferring between the sergeants, Martin, Lipton, Ranney and the rest, casting around the group for the best candidate. Several eyes skated in the direction of Pat and Joan, who quickly shook their heads. “Don’t look at me,” Pat whispered. “I’m a runner, not a gymnast.” 

“Sarge.” Doris tapped Marjorie’s shoulder and gestured to June, nodding. Marjorie nodded, turned back to the others, and made the suggestion, agreement quickly reached. 

“We’re picking Fowler,” Lipton announced, letting June get up to general applause.

“Now, the rules here are pretty simple - climb up, ring the bell, and climb down - no sliding or jumping, all right? First one with both feet back on the ground wins.”

Sergeant Weldon smirked as June stepped up to the rope, brushing her hands on her jump pants and flexing her fingers a few times. At the base of the second rope, Sergeant Cross waited, eyes on his colleague to give the word. "Think you can handle it, girl?" he asked with a smirk, his southern accent coming on strong. June ignored the both of them, eyes at the ceiling, the top of the rope, and the bell, tiny and golden, dangling near the ceiling.

"Ready - steady..." The whistle went off with a siren  _ tweeeeeet _ and the two were off, climbing the rope hand over hand with biceps straining against their PT shirts. Cross may have had the benefit of practice, but June was strong, and determined, and just the slightest bit faster to reach the top, ring the bell, (to the delight of those assembled below) and make her way back down, touching the earth, taking a breath, and breaking into a wild smile as Cross, perhaps half a step behind her, dismounted the rope with an almost stunned look. (Weldon, at the whistle, was trying hard not to frown.)

"Waiting tables at Jersey City's finest," June said with a breathless smile, flexing an arm as Perconte and Liebgott whistled, returning to the group and sitting down amidst the others to shoulder slaps and friendly elbows.

"That was keen," Doris said quietly, as June sat back down and Cross tried to bring the class back down to earth. 

"They had me haul myself out of bed every hour for a month before they let me out of the sanatorium," June said quietly, now that she was back among her friends. "To prove my arms were strong enough for crutches. I'm stronger now than I was then - but that damn rope feels exactly the same."

(The next day it was announced that East Company would progress to B Stage before the others, as they already seemed to be in excellent condition.)

* * *

_ In the second week, B Stage, you work on training aids that help you perfect all the details of an actual parachute jump. At the same time, you keep your muscles hard by workouts on a plumber’s nightmare called a train-nasium. when you crawl and haul yourself through this maze of pipes, you'll use every muscle you built up in A Stage. During this stage you’ll get used to putting on your harness, and meet the Mock Plane - an exact duplicate of the real one from which you'll soon be jumping. It's what you learn here that counts when you jump from the real McCoy later. _

"Don't look now," Billie said quietly to Molly, adjusting the taller woman's belly band and tightening up her leg straps, turning her around to check the elastic of her chute. "But I think we've got an audience. Against the back fence."

And so they had. At the far back of the field, against the fence, a line of keen observers, pale brown PT dresses fluttering in the wind.

Their recruitment and induction seemed so long ago that it was hard to remember a time when they'd thought they'd be typing reports, or servicing radios, or tracking weather data. And over the last three months, amidst nine companies that were mostly men, it was easy to forget that there were other outfits with the Army - and that they were not the only women wearing uniforms. 

The building behind the jump towers had been pointed out to them, their first day here - "the Packing Shed, where every single one of your 'chutes is inspected and cleaned" - but no one had showed them how it was done, or who it was whose hard work was keeping them safe every time they jumped from a plane.

Women, of course, that's who.

The first thing a person noticed about the shed was the silence - each of the teams of women working at the long, hip-height tables was moving in perfect unison, all without saying a word, laying out the chutes and inspecting the lines, carefully laying out the broad expanse of off-color silk panel by panel so it could be flattened, folded, and carefully pressed into the harnesses that Easy had just learned how to put on this morning. It was like watching the mortar team - each soldier had their job, and knew precisely how to do it without any instruction or prompt from the other two.

Billie gave two sharp knocks on the door, and the room stopped, immediately, and looked up, several of the women looking a little annoyed at having been interrupted. “Afternoon,” Billie said, looking around the room and trying to be friendly. “Had some time spare, so we thought we’d come and meet the neighbors. My mother always said not to pay calls empty handed, but we’re out of sugar." 

That got one laugh, from the back of the room, but the silence remained, on the whole, unbroken. These women seemed so different, with their immaculate hair and careful lipstick, a far cry from Billie and Molly’s rakishly set garrison caps and unvarnished nails. "They don't usually let the men come back here," the sergeant offered, her accent a close cousin to Irene's soft Tennessee drawl. "The students, I mean. They say we're a distraction."

"Well, good thing we're not men, then," Billie replied with a grin. More giggles. "So do you...do you ladies usually watch training?"

They exchanged looks. "Sometimes, if there's a cute guy or two,” one of the women closest the door offered. “But we don't usually have to - some of us have been here a year already and we've pretty much seen it all. After you’ve seen it a few times it's easy to call 'em, from the back fence - who'll stick his landing, who'll tangle his lines.”

“They ought to let you teach a class,” Molly said, impressed.

The smiles retreated, and more than one woman looked at her shoes. “Truth be told, none of us have ever gotten a chance to try,” the sergeant spoke up again. “We pack every single one of these chutes, but none of us has ever gotten to jump out of a plane with one. That’s why we were watching, the other day. You’re the first girls they’ve had at the jump school as students. We wanted to see how you did.”

“And? What’s the verdict?”

Grins. “We think you’ll do just fine.”

But they did not have time for more - a fussy-faced woman of fifty with steely hair had marched in, wondering what the noise was, and with righteous indignation, announced, “Men are not allowed in the packing sheds!”

“Good thing we’re not men,” Billie repeated with a grin, the laughter more widespread now, tucking her hands into her pockets and heading for the door. “See ya around, ladies! And thanks for the chutes!”

That night at dinner, Molly and Billie were the most popular girls on campus, every man in the company begging for the secret to where they could find the elusive riggers. “A grateful nation wants to thank ‘em,” Skinny offered with enthusiasm, straddling a chair as he tried to wheedle it out of Molly.

Molly rolled her eyes and returned to her crossword puzzle. “Oh, is that what they’re calling it nowadays, Skinny?”

* * *

_ Now you get to C stage in your training - looks like the World's Fair or Coney Island! But here's where you get your first taste of what the real jump is going to be like. Here's what it's like to come down with a canopy over your head. _

They were a union of opposites, Easy Company's tallest soldier and her smallest, too, picked to make up weight on what looked to be a carnival ride.

"Ay, Randleman, you usually kiss the girl at the top of the Ferris Wheel," Skip shouted, getting an elbow in his ribs from Connie for his trouble. "Just so's you know!" 

"You try anything funny while we're up there and I will hurt you," Doris promised, a dangerous look in her eye as the seat, and the attached canopy, began its slow ascent to the top of the tower.

Randleman only laughed, and kept his hands to himself. "My mama'd like to say she raised me better'n that. And even if she hadn't,” he added, glancing down at the waiting crowd, “the rest of you'd have my hide."

* * *

_ At last, here's fourth week of training - the payoff week! D Stage - when you make a regular jump for the first time, and 4 times after that before you qualify. A C-47 is waiting to take you up - but you'll come down on your own. _

Billie hugged her arms around her reserve chute and glanced around the rest of the plane, at Julie, who looked like she was holding her breakfast in through sheer force of will, and Molly, who had squared her jaw but perhaps did not quite believe it yet, and Eileen, whose eyes were locked hard out the little tiny windows of the plane. Even Joan, sitting right next to Billie, looked a little terrified, but she’d won the honor of going first - “so you all can shove me out if I don’t go.” They’d had a laugh about that - “As if you’d be scared of anything!” - but it was Billie who’d have to do it if the other woman lost her nerve, and the prospect seemed a little grim. If Joan couldn’t jump…

The light came on, and they were standing, the floor of the plane rumbling beneath them as the jump master cued them to hook up, and check equipment, each one tapping the arm of the person in front of them, twelve okay, eleven okay, ten okay, down the whole long line, until Billie was tapping Joan’s shoulder, “TWO OKAY” and they were shuffling forward, and they were waiting for the green light, and Joan was gone, and suddenly she, Billie, was standing at the door.

She was being pulled in all directions at once, the air was rushing by her face and she did not even think she heard the jumpmaster yell GO, but the door was no longer there and she was free, free as a bird (one-onethousand) the air rushing and cold, her heart no longer pounding (two-onethousand) the sky had never been this shade of blue nor the clouds this close (three-onethousand) and really wasn’t this the most blessed, beautifully perfect day?

She pulled for her chute, feeling the straps tug her chest and legs as the canopy opened, and she was a bird, a leaf, a bit of dandelion fluff blown into the wind, lingering in the air until gravity brought her back down to earth with heels down, and a soft thump.

And all Billie wanted, more than she’d ever wanted anything else in her life, was get right back into that airplane and do it again.

She looked around, watching the chutes touch down across the Georgia fields, their occupants gathering them back up so the girls in the packing sheds could see to their reuse. This was it. They had done it! There was Joan, and Pat, Molly and Perconte, June and George, eight, nine, ten, eleven...eleven?

Billie looked around, her eyes suddenly raking the trees. "Where's Eileen?"

The cry seemed to go down the field, each man or woman checking to see if the person nearest him was the Californian - only to see the open canopy, dragging away from a prone body lying on the ground, Joan running towards the chute to try and get ahead of it as they'd seen the instructor do in training, grabbing the side to drag it around and spill the wind out, while Liebgott quickly joined her to unbuckle the harness and turn her over, scraping her hair out of her face, checking her pulse, feeling for breath, praying.

* * *

"It's called syncope," Billie explained to the waiting, anxious crowd at dinner, the worst use for her once-forgotten training as a nurse. "Your blood pressure gets too high and you pass out. She was so keyed up about the jump it just went through the roof after her chute deployed, I guess. We're just lucky she didn't hit a tree, or we would have had a hell of a time getting her down."

"And they wouldn't have seen that on her physical?" Liebgott asked. Of all the guys to get broken up about this, Joe wasn’t, from the outside, the obvious candidate, but the scrappy San Fran cabbie and the Los Angeles showgirl seemed to have reached an understanding of sorts over the last several months, and he was taking this hard.

Billie shook her head. "Most of the time she'd be just fine. Nothing's broken, just...over-excited, is all. She's got some cuts and bruises from being dragged by the chute, but she'll live."

"Is she going to try again?"

Billie shrugged. "Joan and Judy are talking with her. After all the shit we've been through, who would want to give up now?"

"Someone who nearly died jumping out of a plane," Joe said quietly. When Judy and Joan got back from the infirmary, the prognosis looked good - she was shaken, but she was fine, and she wanted more than anything to try again. 

But in the end, someone else made up Eileen’s mind for her. Apparently, as far as the Army was concerned, blacking out after exiting the plane was much the same as refusing to go, and that decision was irreversible. She stayed overnight in the infirmary, and in the morning, her things were gone, and no one knew what had happened to her or where she had gone until they happened to see her coat in hand, being escorted to a jeep.

"Eileen!" Joan tore off running, thinking for a moment to come back and grab Guarnere's pen, tearing the half- finished letter out of his hands and running after the other woman and her escort. "EILEEN, WAIT." 

It was strange, Eileen in her dress uniform with her barracks bag and Joan in her summer pinks, sleeves rolled. Standing together, they no longer looked like opposites - merely two sides of the same coin. Much had changed since those early days at Toccoa, when Eileen had arrived checking her compact and Joan the technical manual. Now they stood together as equals - friends, even. Joan was writing something on the paper, giving Eileen instructions of some kind, an address, a name? Who could tell? She handed the paper to Eileen, who took it, read it, and laughed, the two exchanging some kind of private joke.  _ No shit, really _ . Joan shrugged, Eileen smiled, and tucked it into her pocket, and then pulled Joan in for a hug.  _ You'll have to tell me more about that. Take care of yourself. Give 'em hell. _ Then Eileen was headed back to the depot, and Joan was jogging back to the shade of the trees.

"Sorry, Bill," she said, returning Guarnere's pen. "I wanted to get her a name - someone who might be able to help."

"You owe me a piece of paper," Bill shot back, grousing. 

"And a half a letter to your ma, right, Bill, I'll get right on that," she said with evident sarcasm, which earned her a friendly cuff on the shoulders. "Do you want me to go get my nice floral stationary?" Another elbow to the ribs showed what Bill thought of that, and the table returned, slowly, to normal.

"She being sent home?" Marjorie asked, watching Joan settle back into her seat.

"She doesn't really know," Joan said. "Could be back to Des Moines, could be out of the Army. I think they'll tell her when she gets there." She shook her head and suddenly pounded the table with her fist, making everyone's coffee jump, prompting more agitated complaints. "She could have done it. I know she could have. We're too close to winning, and they're looking for reasons to get us out."

"We can't change it, Joanie,” Marjorie said as lightly as she could, “We just have to do the best for ourselves."

But Joan was lost in thought, mouth in a tight line and eyes fixed at some point in the future only she could see, and there was a look in her eyes that said, quite clearly, that if they wanted to get rid of Joan Warren, they would have to bring the dynamite, and she would be good and ready for them when they did. 

(She stayed up late writing, and the next morning there were six or seven letters, ready for the post office in Joan’s neat handwriting, to Washington, D.C. and New York and Cheyenne, Wyoming, each as clearly lettered as a declaration of war.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've taken a couple of liberties with this chapter - the 506th started some of their jump school exercises at Toccoa, but the airfield there wasn't big enough for proper C-47 takeoffs (they actually crashed a plane at one point) so they did go over to Benning for their actual jumps.
> 
> Historically, Easy Company did get a chance to opt out of A stage because their physical condition was just that good.
> 
> You can watch the whole training film T.F. 31-1231 online on YouTube!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end is so close they can almost hear the corks popping. Just a few more jumps, and they'll be paratroopers, ready to take on whatever theatre the army throws them into.
> 
> But first, the jumps - and after that, their first parade review, where, if rumor is to be believed, a special guest of honor will be making an appearance.

The end was so close they could almost hear the corks popping. 

It was like sounding off before exiting the plane, or counting before you released your chute. Four okay, three okay, two okay, one okay, each successful jump putting them one step closer to the golden five they would need to earn their wings.

Newspapers became a precious commodity, the speculation on where they'd be sent first reaching epic proportions- but the fighting was worse in the Pacific, but they did not have a suitable airbase now that Midway had been bombed to hell, but aircraft carriers existed, but the 82nd was parachuting into Sicily and mainland Italy would surely be next. The war suddenly seemed closer than ever before and, yet, inestimably distant. There was talk of field exercises, yet to be completed in North Carolina, which had been selected because it was rocky like the Solomons, but forested, like France - but also heavy discussion around what sort of beer was being trucked in for their big Prop Blast party at the end of the week.

When they went up on their fifth jump, they were merely soldiers, but as their Corcorans touched down, they were finally - finally!- worthy of the name for which they had worked so hard. It was Colonel Sink, of course, who did the honors, getting up on-stage and looking around with a glint in his eye. “Well, at ease, paratroopers.” And the word was theirs, a badge they would now never take off.

“Now, parachute infantry,” Sink began, beer in hand, “is a new concept in military history. But I am certain that the 506th will forge that new concept into victory.” There were cheers. “I want you all to know I'm damn proud of every single one of you. And it seems the Army is pretty damn proud, too, because I have just received word, today, that a very prestigious guest of honor has asked to come and conduct your first parade review tomorrow afternoon. I will let their identity remain a surprise. So tonight I want you to have fun, and remember - there are plenty of hours to sleep it off between now and tomorrow afternoon at three.” This was met with widespread laughter, and even some applause, which Sink smiled at. “We’ll bother with all the cleaning - I want you men to celebrate. You’ve earned this party, and you should enjoy it. And now, gentleman - and ladies,” he added, quickly, catching sight of Ruth in the front row, “A toast. To all of you - to the battles you have won, and those you have yet to fight. Currahee!”

“Currahee!” One hundred and twenty glasses were raised, and the cry echoed back from one hundred and twenty throats, glasses and bottles clicked and the toast drunk in happy-hearted unison.

Sink was both an officer and a gentleman, which was why he made his rounds, finished his beer, and made off in short order, taking anyone with the rank above captain with him as he went, a tacit approval to, as the saying went, let their hair down. Which was why Bill Guarnere was downing an entire pint with his jumpwings in the bottom of the glass, and the somewhat unexpected barbershop quintet of Grant, Wynn, Liebgott, Talbert, and Skinny had taken to the stage to serenade them all with a poem they’d somehow found time to write (and practice?) in their idle hours for the last several weeks.

And, of course, a large topic of conversation that evening was what everyone was going to do with three weeks of leave for Christmas.

Home, vacation, go and see mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, aunt, uncle, cousins, neighbors, girlfriend, boyfriend, Atlantic City, New York, Niagara Falls, Miami, Los Angeles, Lakeville, Minnesota, dance, drink, gamble, fuck, fight like hell, get a tattoo, go to church, go to bed, go to the license office and make it official, go to the jewelers and get it engraved, go to the bank, go to take out the trash, go to take out a mortgage, see a lawyer, make a will, make a move, make a cake and eat the whole damn thing yourself. 

A hundred different little freedoms they had all been denied since they'd signed their souls to Uncle Sam for the duration plus six months. 

"Anyone know what's eating Joan?" Connie asked, trying to get a handle on the card game in front of her while watching the small drama that seemed to be taking place in the back of the PX, as Marjorie tried to talk some sense into a much quieter, more worried version of her friend.

"Who knows? She got a letter from home on Monday and she's been jumpy as a cat all week,” Skip said, obviously not caring one way or the other. “Marjorie's with her, she'll be fine. Now, you gonna drink that, or no?" He asked, reaching around with serpentine ease for Connie’s yet-undrunk beer.

She slapped his hand, and, just to prove the point, took a long sip before turning back to the game. “Yes, you lunkhead, get your own. Now, who’s dealing?”

Sobel, too, had quickly left, saying something about the heat, and a letter home, and a half a dozen other excuses that were merely a means to say, without saying, that he knew where he wasn’t wanted, which left Lewis sidling into the corner with Annie and Dick with three glasses perched precariously in his hands. “And here we have...one gin and tonic, hold the gin, one whiskey sour, and one whiskey neat - if they can actually call this whiskey,” he added, inspecting his glass and sniffing.

“We didn’t all grow up with champagne palates, Nixon,” Annie said with a bemused smile, taking a sip of her own drink and rolling her eyes. 

“Ah-ah-ah, before anything else, another toast.” Lewis raised his glass. “To Captain Annie Sutton, and the benefit of the doubt.” Dick and Annie looked at Lewis, eyes silently entreating him to explain. “She didn’t have to give two practically mint-issue lieutenants the time of day, but she did, and I will say that I, personally, am a better man, and a better officer, for it. We have benefited immensely from your wisdom and your example, our soldiers have benefited from your expertise, and we will miss you like blazes when you’re not here to get our sorry butts out of bed in the morning. Our loss is truly the Army’s gain. Next class of paragals ain’t gonna know what hit ‘em.”

Annie smiled, pleasantly surprised by the sincerity of his comments, and raised her glass. “To the benefit of the doubt!”

“The benefit of the doubt,” Dick repeated, clinking glasses and taking a sip of his drink, pleased to find that for once, Lewis hadn’t tried to get them to actually put the gin in with the soda water and lime.

“Now! Accomplishments duly celebrated, on to the next order of business. I found out who the guest of honor is.” 

They both stared. “What, already?”

“There is not a secret on earth that is safe from me,” Lewis said with a smile, “Which is why you all love me so much.”

“Well, who is it? Anyone we know?” Dick asked.

“He’s enjoying stringing us along,” Annie replied with a knowledgeable look. “It’s probably some two star somebody they pulled out of a conference room for a photo op.”

“Oh, no, apparently he asked to come,” Lewis said, eyes bright, taking a sip of his whiskey. “Been following this for a while, by all accounts. And... well, let’s just say you’re going to recognize the name.”

* * *

Even the set-dressers at Paramount could not have devised a more perfect afternoon. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there was only the faintest hint of cloud to occasionally muddle the sunshine.

The review having been (wisely) set for that afternoon, everyone had plenty of time to sleep in, regret every decision they’d made the night before, drag themselves out of bed, and woefully down their Alka-Seltzer.

By lunchtime, every single barracks was a flurry of polishing and brushing and spit-shining shoes, the Toccoa rumor mill already going strong with who the promised guest of honor was going to be - George Marshall? The President? Eisenhower himself? But as they stood on the Fort Benning parade field, trousers bloused and caps at perfect angles, all of it seemed completely worth it as the man himself finally appeared. 

General John J. Pershing looked like a soldier, and though his wars were twenty years gone or more, the way he carried himself betrayed a long life spent in the Army, and the service of his country. Uniform immaculate, mustache carefully trimmed, his only concession to advancing age was a cane, carried, it seemed, almost more for effect than the support of his diminishing six foot frame. Sink was in his element, going through the rigors of the training, and the layout of the camp for his honored guest, as Pershing smiled and nodded and joked, in passing, about Mitchell’s cockeyed plans during the last war to parachute the First Infantry Division into Metz. 

Just two old warbirds, shooting the breeze, with several more of Sink’s officers, plus an army photographer and several AP newsmen following up behind with cameras aplenty. 

He was a legend, almost a myth. This was the man who’d fought the Moros and the Mexicans, who’d lead their fathers and uncles into France during the last war, who’d driven his troops into open combat when the British and the French had stuck to their trenches, and who had, ultimately, triumphed over all of it. He had a face that seemed to demand better things of his soldiers, and men stood a little taller as he passed by. 

When he came to Easy Company, and to Joan and Marjorie and Julie in the front rank he smiled, and paused. “You know, Colonel Sink, the only reason we brought women to Europe last time was to care for the wounded and answer the phones. Came under a lot of fire for doing it - as I know you’ve done.”

“I’m sure you have some thoughts about it, sir,” Sink said diplomatically, neither confirming nor denying his own heated opinions on the subject. Behind him, the newsmen scribbled furiously.

“On the contrary,” Pershing replied, raising his voice a little louder so that the front rank, at least, could hear him. “Best decision I ever made. Wouldn’t have won the war without those phones. Coolest heads in the whole army - have the building burning down around ‘em and they’d never flinch. The Army started the WAC with those women, and I was proud to say I’d helped them do it. They were fine soldiers then, and they’re fine soldiers now - a credit to their officers.” He nodded to Captain Sutton, her new bars sharp on her collar, and she saluted, almost allowing herself a smile. Pershing wandered away from the official path of the review and into the ranks, nodding to the women with an open smile on his craggy face.

He stopped in front of Joan, taking a deep breath and looking her over, the crease of her garrison cap with its blue badge and the shine on her jump wings. “Private.” Joan’s face broke a little, and she saluted, as smart as anything, while the men farther back in the formation exchanged side-glances and wondered what the hell was going on.

“Sir!” 

The General beamed, and returned the salute, before holding out his hand. Joan relaxed a little, and took it, the entire regiment stunned even further when John Pershing, General of the Armies, Commander in Chief of the American Expeditionary Forces, Legion d’Honneur, Grand Cross Knight Order of the Bath, broke literally every rule in the book and pulled Private Joan Warren in for a hug.

No one quite knew what to do, until Doris, finally putting two and two together, gasped, and whispered, incredulous, to anyone who could hear her, “That’s  _ Uncle Jack?!” _

* * *

The parade ended in an uproar. 

Companies were dismissed to dinner, Joan was whisked away with the General’s party for whatever it was that came after official parade reviews (whiskey and dinner with the officers, doubtless) and Joan’s newly revealed family connections were all anyone could talk about for the rest of the day, as Little Miss Society Pages was found, on further review, to actually be Little Miss  _ Army Royalty _ instead.

“Did you see Sink’s face?” “Forget Sink - did you see Sobel?” “Yeah, he looked ready to shit himself.”

“I would, too, if I’d just found out I’d spent the last three months making life hell for Black Jack Pershing’s niece. You know he ran prison camps in the Philippines?” 

“Serves him right. Where is Saint Joan, anyway?”

“Invited to the Officer’s Mess for dinner,” Bill said happily. “Hoho, I’d love to be a fly on that wall while she tears Sobel a new one. He’s got a lot of explaining to do.”

Others, however, were quieter about it. “Did any of you know?” Lipton asked, nursing his beer in the corner and trying to make sense of things. The girls shook their heads. 

“I did.” Everyone looked down the bar at Marjorie, lingering over the last quarter of her beer. “But only since last night. And she only told me because she knew he would come today, and she wanted someone else to know. That’s what all those letters were for, after Eileen was kicked out - letters to anyone she could think of who’d draw a crowd of reporters. Her letter on Monday was from him- a confirmation saying that it had all been arranged." They sat with this a moment. Marjorie took a breath, obviously still digesting all of this herself. "She didn’t tell anyone before because she said it didn’t matter - and she didn’t want to get any special treatment.”

“Well, she’s sure as hell getting special treatment today,” Liebgott groused.

And, it seemed, afterwards, too. The next day someone had come for Joan’s footlocker, her bed just as neatly made as when she’d left for the review the day before. Gone home to Washington with the General, the story went, though no one really knew what was going on. Before everyone had headed home for Christmas, the rumor mill had well and truly started up a second time, although answers to several of the more common assumptions had emerged.

Had she run away from home? No.

Joined under an assumed name? Wrong again. Pershing had married her father’s sister - though, in case one famous family member were not enough, her grandfather had also been a US Senator - and a goddamn Medal of Honor recipient, no less - which went a long way to explaining the fancy East Coast girls’ school education. 

Was this all some kind of joke? “Do you think anyone would put up with Sobel like she did for a joke?” Lipton wanted to know, and no one went with that line of reasoning after he put it that way.

Nieces of former Allied Forces Commanders completing jump school were, as it happened, quite a news story to the rest of the world as well. The next week the Atlanta Journal (along with, it seemed, nearly every other newspaper in the country) had run the story, several complete with photos of the whole exchange, or candids, afterwards, as though it were a high school graduation, the beaming uncle and his pretty, put-together niece. 

_ General Greets Niece in Parade Review; Pershing Lends Stamp of Approval to Lady Paratroopers. _

  
The headlines seemed endless in their praise, effusive in their speculation.  _ A long-time proponent of including women in military matters, and the progenitor of today’s Women’s Army Corps, the former General has recently been spotted in Washington at the offices of the General Chief of Staff, advocating, no doubt, for the full inclusion of the Army’s women in any future plans to invade Europe. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _High pitched teakettle noises._
> 
> OKAY, I’ve been excited to share this chapter since I started this whole story, because I am just...so proud, of this backstory, guys. I am so proud. John Pershing married Helen Frances Warren in 1905, and they had 4 children, whom you will hear about more later. Helen’s brother, Frank, also marries, and historically has one child; Joan is his (obviously very fictional) daughter. Aunt Michie, of whom we have heard already, is Micheline Resco, Pershing’s second wife, who for the purposes of this story he has married earlier. 
> 
> I made a crack a few chapters ago that the Warrens haven’t missed a war since Washington crossed the Delaware, and it’s actually true - Ezra Warren (G-g-grandfather) served with the Connecticut militia in the Continental Army; Francis E. Warren (Joan’s grandfather, the US senator and former governor) served with the 49th Regiment of the Masschussetts Volunteers, and was, indeed, awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions at Port Hudson. (Senator Warren was also a pioneer for women’s rights in his own right - he was the first senator to hire a female staffer for his office!)
> 
> And, of course, Uncle Jack, who covers a lot of conflicts on his own, serving in the Spanish American War, the Mexican Punitive Expedition, and, of course, World War One. He also has another distinction. There are two people in the Army who can never be outranked - George Washington, and John Pershing. His title, General of the Armies, has never been used since, and he is entitled to wear six stars.
> 
> So...Joan really is a Somebody, and she can give Lewis Nixon a run for his money in the “well, my family’s famous’ column. In the 1940s, society women and movie stars were the original influencers, allowing their faces to be used to sell anything from stockings to soap, so getting a name that people will recognize on your good side for PR purposes is going to pay dividends. And the Warren/Pershing personal brand is worth a ton in the hallowed halls of Army power.
> 
> So don’t worry - she’ll be back. You can’t keep a good woman down for long. 
> 
> The first successful army parachute jump was in 1915, when the only airplanes in the army were part of the Signal Corps. There really were plans to parachute the First Infantry Division into Metz - fortunately, the war ended before Billy Mitchell got a chance to try it.
> 
> In World War One, the army does bring a very small group of women to Europe to answer the telephones - 250 of them - both because it’s expedient (most switchboard operators are female, and they can handle six times the volume of male operators) and because it’s helpful - they’ve all been recruited because they speak fluent French. The quip Pershing makes about the building burning down around them is true - there are pictures of it in the National Archives, and they do maintain phone service while men are outside fighting the fire.
> 
> Historically, their exact status with the army is unclear; some have been sworn into the Army while others have signed contracts, and they’re not officially recognized as veterans until the 1970s after a long campaign by one of their members, Merle Egan Anderson. In this universe, it’s this group of women, the Signal Corps Telephone Operator’s Unit, that forms the basis for the Women’s Army Corps as we see it here. I cannot recommend Elizabeth Cobbs’ book The Hello Girls enough.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Home meant room to breathe, and sort out priorities, and makes sense of life.
> 
> And after all the hullabaloo at the end of jump school, Richard Winters is particularly glad to be home.

He’d been drifting in and out of a trance since he’d gotten on the train in Georgia, a combination of worry and relief, that they’d cleared the first hurdle, that they were one step closer to war - that there were still things, apparently, that Dick Winters still did not know about his soldiers.

The business with Joan Warren had been a hell of a way to end the year, and, truth be told, he was still trying to process all of it himself. It was probably for the best that they were all going home to let the dust settle, and come back when emotions were less high. That was the hope, at any rate - though it seemed like every newsstand the train passed had some story about the thing, running the same ten pictures from the Associated Press. It was bound to come up once or twice around the dinner table, and he was certain that some of his soldiers would have something to say - and some have more to say than others. His own mind was not quite made up yet.

But regardless of circumstance, it would be good to be home, at least for a few weeks, before they were all trucked up to North Carolina for the next stage of training. There would be room to breathe, and clear his head, and remember what he had joined the Army for - home, and family, and all those other things poster-artists love to invoke with cozy firesides and curly-haired children and soft-eyed brunettes in cute aprons.

The whistle called his attention back to the business at hand, the train slowing so he could get a good look at the station, and the sign thereon - WELCOME TO LANCASTER.

It was short work, getting his duffle down from the luggage rack, and, as he hoisted it onto his shoulder, he noticed a young woman across the aisle with a sorority pin on her jacket watching him carefully. She smiled, and he, trying to be polite, nodded in reply and touched a hand to his garrison cap. It wasn’t until he was ten steps down the car that he realized she had been, as Nix would have put it with a glint in his eye,  _ checking him out.  _

But the girl (and her come-hither-soldier look) just wasn’t important to him at the moment - because the only girl that really mattered was waiting for him on the platform in black wool and pumps, watching everyone carefully disembark until she saw him, waving her gloves in the cold of the Pennsylvania afternoon. "Richard!"

He crossed to her side of the platform, accepting her enthusiastic hug. "Hi, Ma."

Edith Winters seemed to be clinging to her son’s shoulders just a little longer than usual, and when she pulled away, she dabbed, ever so quickly, at the corner of her eye. "I think you've gotten taller,” she announced. “Obviously they're feeding you well down in Georgia."

"We don't starve,” her son offered with a shrug. “Where's Annie?"

"Still at school - and don't you dare ask why she didn't come to the station when she gets home,” his mother added quickly. “She wanted to skip to come to meet you, and you know I don’t hold with things like that. Her education has got to come first. "

"Course, Ma."

She looked him over again, smiling fondly and squeezing his hand. “You look nice, Dickie.” In that moment, his mother’s approval mattered more to him than a hundred parade reviews, and Dick let the warm, full feeling carry him all the way to the taxi, waiting to take the two of them home.

The route home was all still the same, and on the way he let his mother run him through the news from church, the list of who else had joined up and with whom, the Red Cross Auxiliary board, and the price of fruit, simply grateful to be able to hear her voice again.

As they rolled through town, he saw more blue stars in windows - including the one in his parents’ front window, lovingly mounted near the door. His picture (the one that he and Lew had gone to have taken after OCS) had pride of place on the credenza under the hall mirror, so that everyone coming in the front door would know exactly who the star was supposed to represent. It was touching, really - and in the moment, the flag and the picture made everything seem a little more real. He was a soldier - he would soon be going to war.

With his father still at work and Annie still at school, there was little for him to do - his mother made an offer of a late lunch, which he accepted, and she hung up her coat and hat and bustled into the kitchen to make it so.

It was strange, being home - like putting on an old coat that was now too tight around the shoulders. Nothing had changed - the couch, the end tables, his mother’s collection of plates, the soft smell of his father’s pipesmoke were just as they had been when he had left, and yet it all seemed...strange to him. All of it belonged to a different time, and as much as he’d missed home for a while -- standing in the kitchen to listen to his mother’s advice, playing with Annie -- now that he was here, he missed camp, missed Nix and the men, and the sound of the cicadas. Stepping off the train in Lancaster, he’d realized that for the first time in nine months, he was cold, and that he would finally need that army greatcoat he’d stashed in his luggage.

When Edith Winters came back with a freshly prepared ham sandwich and a glass of milk, she found her son sprawled on an easy chair, dead to the world and sleeping like a child. Well, but that was fine. He deserved a little rest. It was easy enough to set aside the plate and go for one of her lap-blankets, tossing the crocheted squares over her son so he wouldn’t get cold. He had done a lot of growing up in the last year, but there were some times where, to a mother, a son is a boy still.

The nap served him in fine stead - two hours later, the sandwich was still waiting for him on the side table, and he ate it with relish, a piece of food that hadn’t spent half an eternity in a chafing dish. Down the street, he could hear the steady clang of the schoolbell announcing that his sister would be home in ten minutes - five, if she disobeyed her mother and ran the whole way.

Five minutes later (he’d banked on this; he knew his sister too well) Annie Winters was blitzing in the front door, no hi, no hello, just a huge, enthusiastic, “Where is he? Is he home yet?”

“Don’t shoot, kiddo,” Dick said from the front room, and his little sister shrieked with joy and ran to hug him, practically hanging on his shoulders until he spun her around, very nearly knocking over the remains of the sandwich.

There was a quick negotiation between his mother and his sister about Annie’s galoshes, and her play clothes, and not dropping her school bag near the door, but when that was all finally sorted, she was back like a shot, eager as a beaver to share all her news, about her most recent essay, and the results of the scrap drive, how her teacher had gotten a map for the classroom wall where they could put pins to show where their brothers were serving, and his pin was now down in Georgia, but she was excited to move it soon, and how Jennie down the street had a brother who was going to join the Marines but that wasn’t nearly as exciting as the paratroopers. 

"All the kids at school were talking about that girl who graduated from jump school - do you know her?"

"Sure do. She's one of my soldiers - was one of my soldiers," Dick amended quickly, not really knowing what Joan Warren was at this exact moment in time.

Annie’s eyes lit up like sparklers. "What's she like?"

Dick considered this question a moment, trying to think of what he knew about her, which really wasn’t much. In a crowd of a hundred and twenty, it was impossible to know, really know, everyone. Annie Sutton could have given a better summary, and he doubted that Annie Winters wanted to know that she was a good runner and a crack shot. Forget all that other stuff in the newspapers, about her uncle, and her cousin on Marshall’s staff, and the pictures of her as a society deb in a swan-white dress under soft light. He was thinking about runs up Currahee, and combatives training, of stepping in front of an injured teammate and looking at a man they both hated with a blazing eye. He was thinking of a woman who just didn’t know how to quit, and who refused to let someone say she couldn’t do something just because she was a girl. 

Honestly, if his kid sister was going to idolize someone, Joan Warren wasn’t a half-bad choice. 

"She cares about people, a lot. She's the first one in and the last one out and she doesn't like leaving a job half-finished. And she’s... humble. She doesn’t ask for the spotlight, or seek it out, even if she’s earned it. And she'd be the first person to tell you that a hundred and fifty other people graduated from jump school that day, too, and she wasn’t anyone special.”

Annie nodded, though she looked a little crestfallen that her brother did not have some great, amazing secret to share about the woman in the newspaper. 

“Got something for you,” he said, feeling his sister’s regret as keenly as a blow. One of the shop owners in the town of Toccoa, with an eye to the main chance, had put a stamping machine to good use turning out little tin jump wing pins, something to stash in your bag and take home to bribe kid brothers and sisters with over the holidays. He reached into his pocket and held out the wings, which were received with wild joy. Annie immediately pinned them on her pinafore and asked her mother how she looked. 

“Can you make me a hat, Ma, like Dick’s hat? So I can pin them on and wear ‘em to school?”

“I believe the Army calls it a cover, dear, or a cap, and if your brother will loan me his, I’ll see what I can do,” Mrs Winters said with an abbreviated smile, exchanging a glance with her eldest to see if this was amenable. “Now go run along and start your homework. I’m sure along with all their other work the lady paratroopers all turn in their math problems on time.”

Annie looked at Dick, who nodded, very serious, and, resolve strengthened, she thundered up the stairs emboldened by her new wings, intent on showing her workbook who was boss.

“That was a nice thing you did, Dickie.”

Dick shrugged, rising from the table to open the china cabinet and begin laying the plates for dinner. “And what is this?” Mrs. Winters asked.

“Just helping, Ma.”

“Well, Just Helping, I think you’ve earned a chance to sit down and put your feet up on your first night home. That roast will be a while, so you just go...sit with your father, and you can pick the radio station,” she added, this sudden benevolence touching him in a way he’d forgotten he could be touched. 

In the front room, his father, finally home from the office, had settled into his chair with the evening paper to await the arrival of dinner. “Well, Dick, what's your take? On all of this?” His father gestured to the front page.

“They passed the same tests we did, Dad. They're just as capable as the men, and just ready.”

His father didn’t seem to know what to do with this. “Really ought to get rid of that Warren girl, though. I remember in the last war when Quentin Roosevelt died. All the newspapers covered it. They said the President was distraught." He said this with the attitude of someone who thinks that Presidents should never have cause to be distraught. Dick nodded, still not knowing what to say, his father’s opinion sacrosanct. It was one thing to be a lieutenant at boot camp, and have everyone listen to your every word, but back at home he was still Dickie, who had to listen when his father told him to take out the trash and had not quite earned the privilege of disagreeing with him on the state of the world. 

"She's a pretty girl," Winters Senior said, offhandedly, folding his newspaper to get at the second page, "I'm sure they'll find her some desk work for the duration - get her out of your hair. Dead society girls don't make good news."

Richard nodded, staring, for a while, at the now-famous picture that chinwags were calling _ The Old War And the New _ , Joan and her uncle smiling for the newspaper photographers, he the grizzled man of war with a chest full of medals and she fresh-faced and pretty, her uniform’s only adornment the jump wings for which they’d all worked so hard _. She’s just another soldier, Dad,  _ he wanted to say,  _ and she’s wasted at a desk. She’s got as much right to go and fight for her country as I have. And we’d be fools not to take her. _

But as he checked in on Annie and inspected her wall of articles and carefully clipped photos, he couldn’t help realizing, as he had not had time to realize before, that perhaps his father was right - that in a certain light, from a certain angle, Joan Warren _ was _ rather pretty. 

(Not, of course, that it should have mattered - pretty or no, a good soldier was a good soldier.)

* * *

The District of Columbia was generally unfamiliar with the concept of a White Christmas. With snow a rarely seen commodity in this part of the world, the denizens of Dupont Circle had to make do instead with a steady downpour, letting the lights of their Christmas trees flicker against the raindrops on their windowpanes while everyone waxed poetic about the skiing conditions in upstate New York, and the best lodges for winter vacationing, and the absolute hell the war was playing on the train schedule. Just how was one to get to one’s winter getaway when every other train was filled with soldiers?

Such was the conversation currently taking place in her uncle’s front room - and far away from the party and its many luminaries and their talk of skiing vacations and other wartime accommodations, Joan Warren was trying to hide, sitting in a quiet window seat, nursing a cooling cup of cider and studying the street below.

"Hey there, kiddo." Her uncle joined her at the window seat, his own cup of cider looking a little low. "What's doing?"

"Nothing," Joan said, looking down at her mug and then, guiltily, at the party in the room beyond.

"You look like someone stole your balloon," Uncle Jack observed with a smile. "Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're a little old for that, so it must be something else."

Joan took a breath and sighed, picking at a piece of lint on her uniform trousers. "I'm just...wondering if I did the right thing, is all. Writing to you and asking you to come do that review."

He sighed and sat down, gingerly arranging himself on the ledge and patting her knee. "Welcome to the joys of command, Joanie. You make a decision, and good or bad, you've got to live with it. You looked at your options, and your available resources, you saw an opportunity, and you took it. That's what a good leader does - she takes advantage of the high ground when she has it."

"Or the troops in reserve?"

"Or the troops in reserve," Jack Pershing confirmed with a broad smile. "I don't know what they'll do with your gals, but I know you tried to do right by them. You didn't ask me to come for yourself, but for them - so they’d get a couple of eyeballs on ‘em and have a fighting chance of getting to Europe and doing what they signed up to do. And I think it worked - Cis Patterson called and left a message that the Post’s got a whole sack of letters from people who think what you’ve done is swell.” He patted her hand. “She also wants an interview, if you can swing it, but I think your aunt put her off for a little while.”

Joan nodded, considering all this. The phone had been ringing nearly nonstop since the papers had run the story, as every socialite in Washington struggled to get her at their dinner tables and at-homes, and every politician in the city trying to get a piece of ‘the women’s vote’ wanted to arrange a lunch. She was the woman of the hour - and how she hated it! She’d take Cissy Patterson’s interview -- the Post was a large paper, with a female editor and one who was smart enough, moreover, to give the story to a female reporter before Joan suggested it, but not all of the requests were as straightforward. That was tomorrow’s project - sitting down with the dozens of messages and cards and letters from sitting members of Congress to strategize and see where her time could be best spent. It was, frankly, a little overwhelming, and thinking of it made Joan almost wish for another twelve mile march in the rain with a full pack. At least in Georgia her suffering would have had company.

Her uncle must have seen her advancing dread. “You know, your Gramp was a big believer in using your voice for good - and I think he'd be mighty proud of you, Joanie.” She looked up at him, grateful to be seen. Francis Warren had left a long shadow in Washington - and if the town felt his absence keenly, his grandchildren felt it even more. “I know I am. I know Aunt Michie is, I know your parents are,” he continued. “And I...I'm sure Helen and Anne and Mary would have been right there with you, if they could've been. I ...feel quite certain they were, a little." 

His eyes were getting a little misty, and Joan, too, felt her own eyes filling up at the mention of her three little cousins, gone before she had even been born. He reached out and hugged her into his side, the strong, reassuring embrace that had seen her through so many much smaller crises than the one currently at hand. "Now, look here, you've got your old uncle crying into his punch. That won't do, it's Christmas. Now, somewhere in this house Warrey and your brother have stashed some pals from the office. They've all got a couple of oak leaves each but absolutely  _ none of them _ is a qualified paratrooper, and they've been hearing all sorts of stories about the Five-oh-Sinks. So what do you say you and me go and terrify 'em a little?"

Joan blotted her eye on the corner of her sleeve and smiled. "Oh-kay," she said, as if it were with extreme reluctance. It  _ would _ be fun to go see her cousin, and whomever his friends were, she was quite sure she could hold her own. After all, none of them had just spent the last four months as buck privates in the hardest training program the Army offered.

Jack beamed, wrapping her arm around his own so they could meander back to the party together. "And if that stops being fun, let's go round up Nita and make plans to start pressing George to let women join the Tank Corps. I’m sure he’s just a little jealous of all the attention the Airborne’s getting - and you  _ know  _ he’d take you."

She nodded, taking her glass and letting him lead the way back to the party and the music and the lights and the laughter, resolved, at least for a little while, to let tomorrow worry about itself, allowing herself, for one more night, to simply be Joan, who had done a difficult thing and made her uncle proud, and not some conquering heroine who somehow had to save the world. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \---  
> Quentin Roosevelt was Theodore Roosevelt’s youngest son - he served in World War One as a pilot. When his plane was shot down, killing him almost instantly, he was buried by the Germans with full military honors. In fact, two of Roosevelt's children joined the Army during the Great War; Theodore Roosevelt Jr. served as a lieutenant with the 1st Infantry Division, and by the time of World War Two was a colonel.
> 
> White Christmas, the Irving Berlin song made famous by Bing Crosby, was published in 1940 and released on 78 record in 1942 as part of the film soundtrack for Holiday Inn, cementing the phrase in the cultural consciousness. (Holiday Inn hasn't aged well; there's a scene of Crosby in blackface and performing in a 'minstrel' style.) The slightly more famous movie of the same name came out in 1954. 
> 
> Eleanor Medill Patterson, or Cissy, was the editor of William Randolph Heart’s Washington Post from 1930 until her death in 1948. She was one of the first female editors of a major metropolitan daily newspaper. (Joan may want to rethink taking that interview, though - Patterson, always very conservative, was an ardent isolationist and was accused, at one point, of sympathizing with the Nazis.) She did make a point of hiring female reporters across a variety of departments, not just the women’s pages. There are several excellent biographies of her available. (I mentioned the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern a few chapters ago? Same family. Cissy's grandfather, Joseph Medill, was the owner and editor of the Chicago Tribune; Colonel McCormick was her cousin.)
> 
> Warren Pershing, Jack’s son, (I have made the nickname ‘Warrey’ up; this family re-used names like crazy) did serve in World War Two, though his time on the Marshall staff was actually later in the war. When he joined the army he, too, asked that no special provision be made for him, and he distinguished himself as a logistician and engineer - a significant change from his pre-war career as a stockbroker. 
> 
> Helen, Anne, and Mary were Pershing’s own daughters - they died, ages 9, 7, and 3, in a house fire at the San Francisco Presidio in 1915, along with their mother, also Helen, more often called Frankie. Warren was the only one of Pershing’s children to survive the fire. Pershing was away at the Mexican border at the time with what would later become the Mexican Punitive Expedition, and was only a few days away from asking his family to join him in Texas. The fire, and the deaths of practically his entire family, haunted him for the rest of his life. 
> 
> (Joan is born in 1918 - several years after that fire. As she herself will reference later, she’s named after her uncle, as Joan is one of several female versions of John.)
> 
> Nita, at the end, is Nita Patton - George’s sister. George was a protege of Pershing’s during the Punitive Expedition, serving as his courier and driver, and Patton often said that Pershing served as his model for how a general should command. They remained close socially for the rest of their lives; Pershing was actually engaged to Nita for a brief time before the start of World War One. In December of 1942, Patton himself would have been in North Africa as part of Operation Torch, only just underway since November.
> 
> In fact, a great number of World War Two luminaries served under Pershing in World War One, and many of them counted him as one of their mentors and role models.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boot camp is to test and train the enlisted men. Field problems at Camp Mackall are designed to test and train the officers - and some are doing better than others. But that's not the only thing that's currently testing Easy Company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CONTENT WARNING: mention of rape/sexual assault and suicide in a letter.

Toccoa had been hot. The only word that seemed up to the task of describing Camp Mackall was...woodsy.

The camp was so new that their barracks still smelled of fresh-cut pine, the wood and tarpaper just beginning to warp in the rising spring heat. Johnny Martin had a bad habit of stopping in doorframes and next to windows, tapping joists and joins, and making a face, before saying, “Disgusting. It’s war profiteering, is what is.” It got so predictable, in fact, that even at the mention of the word ‘disgusting’ - or even the same expression on Martin’s face - whoever was closest would add “War-profiteering!” in whatever voice they felt like before Johnny could get the words out. In fact, the phrase was now so common that it was becoming an ongoing joke to dub anything with which Easy did not agree as the now-hated phrase.

Revocation of passes? War profiteering. 

Burned toast for breakfast? War profiteering. 

Another one of Sobel’s trigger-happy command failures in a field exercise? Once more, with feeling: _**War profiteering.**_

“All I am saying is, I am preparing to die for my country,” Johnny said sourly, as they came back in from the day’s classroom instruction- a course in orienteering. “The least they could do is give me a barracks that doesn’t leak.”

“Maybe you should go into construction when this is over, Johnny,” Marjorie offered, trying to at least be helpful as she peeled off her jacket and set to brushing the now-dried dirt out of it. “I think you’d be pretty good. HEY! Frank!” She was looking directly at Perconte, who’d flopped down on the nearest bed with his still-dirty Corcorans on the blanket. “Boots off the end, sonny-boy, someone’s got to sleep there.”

Frank frowned, but did as he was told, deciding that sitting up was probably the better alternative to getting bitched out for taking off his shoes. The army still hadn’t quite decided if it trusted its co-eds not to get into the usual kind of trouble, so they had remained in segregated bunkhouses here at Mackall - though that did not stop either side from stopping by to socialize during daylight hours. “As long as the door’s open,” the unspoken rule went in the women’s bunkhouse - and if the door was ever closed, they’d all  _ know _ why. Truth be told, the Army didn’t have to worry - the lingering threat of having a hundred guys know your business was enough to keep any but the absolutely most dedicated from fooling around. (A few men had openly tried their chances, with little success - and those that had been successful had been keeping their accomplishments, and their meeting places, very, very secret.)

“What I want to know,” Christiansen asked, sitting on a footlocker down the aisle, “is what they think we’re learning when they’ve got us sat on our asses for every single one of these field exercises? All because Captain Shiny Shoes decided to lead us into another ambush.”

“We’re learning he’s a terrible leader,” June offered.

“That ain’t news, sunshine,” Perconte said, flipping idly through one of Judy’s fan magazines. “We knew that before we left!”

“Mail call!” Lipton appeared at the door with a hefty stack of letters, tossing them out to their respective recipients. “Gordon, got a package here for you, too.”

“That another one of those cakes from your mom?” Frank looked up with an eye to the main change. The girls’ mail was always much better tasting than the boys, as legions of high school friends (as well as aunts, mothers, and sisters) were having the time of their lives keeping the girls in cookies and fudge, all on the proviso that their own charms be heavily mentioned when the contents of the box were shared with the boys.

“No,” Marjorie said, taking the package from Lipton and inspecting the address. “Somewhere in D.C. It’s really light, anyway.”

“Maybe Allen’s sending you nylons,” Molly suggested with a hopeful smile, a happy thought that every single woman dwelt on for a few minutes while Marjorie shrugged and tossed the box aside and returned to the job of her jacket.

Judy, opening her mail next to Frank, made a sound of disgust, and the rest of the bunkhouse turned to listen to her latest complaint. “My mother’s sent me another clipping of You-Know-Who. ‘Private Joan Warren takes tea with Representative Edith Nourse-Rogers.’ Figures. We’re pulling ticks out of our hair and she’s wearing white gloves and laughing about us here in the backwoods.”

Glances were exchanged. 

Since the end of jump school and Joan's abrupt departure, there had been a slight fracture in company unity - those who could see their way to understanding what she had done, and those who thought she deserved a first-class ticket to purgatory. (The sentiment was not often quite so exaggerated, but you're supposed to trust the soldier next to you, right, and how can you do that if they're holding out on you like that?) 

Prevailing opinion was that, as she wasn't here to defend herself and was now someone else’s problem, the thing was best ignored, but there were still some people who insisted on poking the bear. And Judy, whose mother did keep sending her press cuttings, for reasons the rest of the company didn’t understand, was perhaps the worst offender. None of them had realized how much Eileen had tempered her fellow Californian until the day Eileen had left. Deprived of her friend and accomplice, and aggrieved by the perceived slight caused by Joan’s press coverage, these days Judy was inclined to be more than a little bitchy.

"Hate on her all you like, Judy, but that ain't gonna change how I feel," Doris said loyally. "My ma as good as told me not to come home when I joined up, and when I stepped off that train there she was at Union Station like she'd never been so proud of me in her life - told everyone at church and all the neighbors what we're doing here, all because my sister read her an interview Joan did with Mary King at the Trib.” 

“My dad, too,” Irene said. “He had a bunch of articles pinned up in the station, next to the register, and a little blue star flag he clipped out of a magazine. And he told everyone who rolled through going on to Oak Ridge that his daughter was in the Airborne. He wasn’t ever...real proud of having a daughter before.”

“All my cousins wanted to know was whether or not she’s as pretty in person as she is in all them articles,” Bill said, coming in from outside to join the party.

“And?” Christiansen looked at Guarnere with interest. “What’d you tell ‘em?”

“Told ‘em if I’d said what I thought she’d have knocked me on my ass,” Bill said with a grin, which earned a grin back from Christiansen. “And they should do the same, if a guy started getting fresh. There’s a big naval base near their house, all kinds of sailor types who think they own the place. Took ‘em out in my ma’s backyard and taught ‘em all those breaks Lieutenant Sutton showed us.”

“You tell ‘em Joan Warren grabbed you by the balls once?” Frank asked with a grin, the rest of the bunkhouse remembering that particular lunchtime conversation with smiles and nods,  _ oh yeah, that did happen, didn’t it? _

Bill shrugged. “Eh, mighta left that part out.”

“She’s really gone to bat for us,” Doris said. “Truth is, I kinda feel sorry for her.”

Judy sat up like she’d been struck. “Sorry? For her? Sitting in the Palm Court taking interviews and eating tea sandwiches?”

“Do you think she's enjoying giving these interviews?” Connie wanted to know. “Look at one of those picture's your ma's sending, Judy - she looks miserable. She'd be having the time of her life out here, and you know it. Probably help Tipper and Petty hide the Captain's map - and put poison ivy in his shorts while she was at it.”

“If we’re really doing that, I want in,” Ruth said crossly. “I’m sick of sitting on the sidelines playing dead.”

Judy looked betrayed. “You all go on boo-hooing, but I’m not losing any sleep. Joan Warren’s a liar and a fake and we should be glad we’ve gotten rid of her.”

“Those interviews she’s giving are probably the only reason any of us are still here, Judy,” Marjorie said evenly. “The army didn’t want us in - they wanted a bunch of fresh faces they could put on a magazine cover so’s they could say they’d done something about women in combat and then booted us back to the typing pool when the cameras stopped.”

“‘S true,” Connie agreed. “Now they can’t hide us. We’re out front and center - and people like us. I must have had a dozen girls tell me they were going to join up - the WACs, the WAVES - whatever! - ‘cause they read one of her interviews.”

“You people are delusional! She lied to us! For months and months!”

“When did she lie? We talked about family in the army, and she talked about her uncle - all technically true,” Marjorie said.

“But her uncle is -” 

“Jesus, Judy, it’s not like she’s related to Hitler.” Everyone turned, surprised, to Molly, who was not inclined to outbursts. “So her uncle’s famous. Mine was the principal of my elementary school. Do you know how hard I worked to make sure no one knew we were related? It was hard work when I was seven.”

“You want to know what Joan’s been doing? ” Marjorie got off her footlocker, opened it, and pulled out a stack of letters, flipping through the top of the pile until she found what she was looking for, passing one over. “Here.”

Judy looked like she’d just been offered a live snake. “You’re _ writing _ to her?”

“It’s a free country, Judy,” Marjorie said, rolling her eyes. “Read the letter.”

Judy huffed, but took the envelope she was offered, taking out the letter (neatly addressed and folded - how Joan!) and reading the first few lines. “Aloud, if you don’t mind, Judy,” Marjorie added. It was Judy’s turn to roll her eyes, but she did as she was told.

_ Dear Marj, _

_ Another three day pass, another tea party today - Baltimore, with the DAR. I'm not sure what the women's clubs of America think they're accomplishing, but whenever I get out, I'm never joining another one - it's all watercress sandwiches and gossip. And after six months of army food, everything tastes too sweet. (Learned that the hard way at last week's luncheon.) They did a little bit of club buisness and then got around to their guest of honor - yours truly! I'm getting better, I think - skirt instead of slacks, seams straight, a shade of lipstick that's not too bright. And now that I've done it a few times, the speech is getting better - I know where the pauses go, and what gets the laughs, and the gasps, and the discreet reach for a handkerchief. There's a slow roll through the Revolutionary War, Molly Corbin and the like (it is the DAR, after all) name-drop my way through Clara Barton and Dorthea Dix, and Susan B Anthony campaigning for the vote, and tie the thing off with how the women's clubs of America have always been soldiers in a different kind of war.  _

_ Usually by the end they're clapping - and not just politely, either. Several have brought their daughters up afterwards and thanked me for coming, and asked for tips about the Army entrance exam. I tell them to write their local paper about my lecture. It's a start. These girls, Marj. They're in their party dresses and their gloves and ready to be bored out of their skulls and by the end of the speech their eyes are on fire. I don't think anyone's ever told them they could do anything other than serve tea-sandwiches! That part, at least, has been worth it - telling America's girls they can do and be anything. _

_ Anyway, you'll never guess who turned out to be at today's luncheon. Mrs. F. Saffley - or Susan, as her name turns out to be. You remember - the woman who wrote that nasty letter that Judy read us all those months ago? Oh, Marj, we had a time. She went on about her sister, who was a nurse ‘last time’ and had 'something awful' (you know what) happen to her when she was in France, and she - well, she killed herself afterwards. Susan read about us, and it brought back some feelings. I assured her all of us were fully proficient with our fists (I left out Sutton's lecture about the bayonet) and could give anyone who tried what for - and if we didn't, the girl next to us certainly would. _

_ As much as this is apparently about us, the women of America are all very concerned about the men. I spend a lot of time telling people that the rest of the company aren't Romans sacking the Sabine camp. (One exception, whose name I won't waste ink on.) If this is the confidence they have in their sons, the next generation of mothers has a lot of lost ground to cover. _

_ I'm sure the rest of my class thinks I'm a terrible prude- every weekend pass, they're out partying and I'm taking the train with my prim little skirt and gloves to go sit at another tea-table and try to convince people I should be allowed to be a soldier. Every time I start feeling a little down about it, I have to remind myself I'm saving the idea of females in combat, one lecture at a time. Hopefully if I do this now no one will have to do it again later.  _

_ No word yet on whether they’ll let me join you before Europe. Hopefully they’ll at least let you all stay in, even if yours truly gets stuck selling war bonds and signing magazine articles. One thing Sink never mentioned - Standing alone’s hard when you’re not together. _

_ Much love to the rest of the gang, if they'll take it from the Great Traitor. Let me know how maneuvers go. (Still cackling over 90 percent casualties on that field exercise. That man. What a dope. I'd take 80 degree heat and mosquitos over another aspic any day. Currahee!  _

_ Love and nonsense, _

_ Joan _

The barracks was quiet, and Judy, at least, looked a little crestfallen.

“You want to take anything back now?” Marjorie asked, hand out for the now-finished letter. Judy clammed up and handed it over, letting Marjorie stuff it back in its envelope.

“Sabines?” Christiansen pronounced the word with unease.

Molly waved him off. “Tell you later.”

He had another. “Aspic?” 

“Take what we had for lunch and suspend it in gelatin,” Billie said sourly, prompting looks of revulsion from the entire room. “My mother makes them for her book club.”

“That ain’t right,” Frank said, and nothing more was said on the matter as Marjorie packed the letters back into her trunk, and relative peace returned to the bunkhouse. Bill caught Marjorie’s eye and silently pointed outside, and she nodded, locking her trunk back up and stepping out onto the gravel in front of the bunkhouse door, waiting for him to join her. 

Unlike some men in the company, it was easy to know where Bill Guarnere stood on the Joan issue - his good opinion, once gained, was a firm thing, and she'd cemented that well enough when she'd taken her hits during combatives. As far as Bill was concerned, who she was didn't matter as much as what she could do, but he was in the minority. Christiansen was a possible, Frank a heavy maybe, and there was no secret about Judy’s opinion. The real lesson they were getting from this was that it was easier to have conversations like this outside, with the one person you wanted to hear them. It made Marjorie uneasy, keeping all these secrets. But what was to be done?

She sighed. It had been quiet for a few days, which usually meant the brass was prepping something big - probably another field problem, sleeping out for a few days playing an elaborate game of capture the flag, the kind of thing designed to test the officers on their adaptability and improvisation. Sobel was not rating highly in either column. 

"So she's at OCS?" Bill asked, joining Marjorie out on the stoop and fishing for his lighter. He offered her the pack, which she declined. 

"Back at Benning, yeah,” she said with a nod, watching him light up. “Thinks maybe they'll make her a training officer, like Sutton, if they don't have her doing the war bonds circuit. She draws a crowd." 

“Yeah," Bill said, nodding, thoughtful. "She'd be good at that. The training, not the war bonds," he clarified. “Be fucking awful with that.”

Marjorie laughed. “I’ll tell her you said that, Bill, she’ll be so glad you called her out. I tell you she met John Basilone?”

That got a laugh and an impressed smile. “No shit.”

“Yeah - sat next to him at dinner and everything. Apparently he was a real flirt - really turning on the charm for that war bond gig.” Marjorie sighed and shook her head. "Handsy, too - and it’s not like you can punch out a Medal of Honor winner.”

Bill snorted. “Fucking Marines.”

Marjorie made a sound of agreement. “This war bond thing’s a joke. She’d be better in the field with us. Hell, we've never even seen her do it and we know she'd be better than some of what we've got."

"No kidding,” he said, exhaling his smoke with a sigh. “I hear 'hi-yo, silver' one more time and I'm gonna shove his spurs down his fucking throat." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Camp Mackall was built very early in 1943 as Camp Hoffman, quickly renamed after John Thomas Mackall, the first paratrooper to die in North Africa.
> 
> Edith Nourse Rogers was the first woman to be elected to the House of Representatives from Massachusetts, and, until very recently, the longest serving female congresswoman, serving for 35 years. She sponsored the 1942 bill that created the Women's Auxiliary Army Corps, and the 1943 bill that created the Women's Army Corps. She was also one of the people responsible for the GI Bill, and among other post-war responsibilities, she served as the chair of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee.
> 
> Mary King was a well-regarded columnist for the Chicago Tribune and later an editor for that paper; her "For Business Girls" column was a staple in the teens and twenties.
> 
> As the several times great granddaughter of a Revolutionary War veteran, Joan is indeed eligible to join the DAR! Molly Corbin, whom she name-drops in her speech, is one of the first women to receive a war pension for her own military service at the battle of Fort Washington. Dorthea Dix was a creator of a forerunner of the Army Nurse Corps during the Civil War and a later advocate for mental healthcare reform. 
> 
> The Rape of the Sabines was a popular subject in art, a story from Roman mythology about the men of Rome committing a mass abduction of women from the nearby Sabine tribe. America's mothers, in other words, are worried that all their little boys are getting into trouble.
> 
> If anyone needs to make more fun of the monstrosity that is the aspic, The Gallery of Regrettable Food, by James Lileks, is a thing that exists.
> 
> And, as a hat tip to all the great people doing Band of Brothers/Pacific crossovers, John Basilone! He's awarded his Medal of honor for actions in October of 1942 at the Battle of Henderson Field, on Guadalcanal and by 1943 was doing war bond work. He doesn't marry Lena Riggi until 1944, so we can hopefully forgive him getting handsy with Joan.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Regiment is beginning to shape up, and with promotions and reassignments, Easy Company finds itself in need of some new officers to fill the gaps, and that's got Dick Winters worried. Will the new officers be on the side of the men, or choose to side with the C.O.?

Friday nights at Mackall were usually quiet.

Much like Toccoa, where the nearest town was merely two streets and the train station, there wasn’t much to entertain in neighboring Hoffman. A man with a 48 hour pass might hop a bus for Fayetteville and fights with the guys from Fort Bragg, but for those without, a weekend’s adventures consisted solely of whatever fun you could make for yourself on base, be that a book or a movie or the officer’s club, where for more money than Dick liked to think about, a fellow could listen to some music and drink his cares away.

But the new officers had arrived, and with them new assignments, and in the spirit of getting to know the neighbors, Dick had dragged himself to the Club and parked himself on a barstool, as far away from the action as possible, slowly nursing a soda water.

"So, you meet 'em yet?" Nixon asked, sitting down with his whiskey. Dick looked confused. "The spare parts," he specified.

"Oh, them." Dick nodded. "One of 'em, yeah. Harry. I'll...I'll introduce you. He's bound to be around here somewhere.” He fiddled with the cocktail pick in his soda water, fishing around with the lime wedge attached to the end. “Lew, could we... could we find something else to call them?"

"What, besides spare parts? It's what they are, isn't it?"

"Yes,” Dick allowed, “but reminding a guy he's only there in case another guy gets killed isn't ...exactly the best look."

It was true, and they both knew it, though it didn’t sit well with either of them. “Well, at the rate you’re going we’re going to need more than two or three,” Nixon observed flatly. “Ninety percent casualties. I think we set a record with that one.”

"Don’t remind me."

“I was almost afraid to show my face in public today,” Nixon went on, taking a generous sip of his drink, as though the whiskey could dull the public shame of being associated with a man who was shaping up to be the most grossly negligent officer in the (admittedly short) history of Mackall field problems. “How you can stand to do it every day is beyond me.”

“It wasn’t my call,” Dick said, almost as if he were reminding himself. This was the thing he, personally, was struggling with - that every one of Sobel’s command failures tarred him with the same brush. He’d known exactly what to do with the field problem, and had advised his commanding officer on the correct course of action. It was beyond his control what the man did with that information, and that was what he was finding hard to stomach, that these were all mistakes that could have very easily been avoided. 

He considered himself a man of mild opinions; he was here to do a job and lead his men, and he was trying to do that in the best way possible. But there was one thing Dick Winters was finding he absolutely couldn’t tolerate, and that was incompetence.

_ I think often,  _ he had written to Annie Sutton, after another failed exercise _ , about what you said about officers needing to work together, and present themselves as a team. It is becoming difficult to do this when the leader of that team is monumentally incapable. _

_ Once I think you referred to him in passing as a tyrant, and I know now that it is true. In situations where he can control the variables he excels, but for anything else, involving quick decisions or snap judgments, he freezes - an unhelpful trait for a man leading troops into combat. I know I can’t change the man, and must work with him as he is, but it is proving difficult. _

_ At Toccoa he was testing the men. Now he is testing me. _

“And they're not  _ all _ spare parts,” Dick added, trying to add a small bit of levity to what was becoming an increasingly depressing conversation. “Some of them are replacements - for jerks who got asked to serve on battalion staff." 

Nixon snorted. “Yeah, yeah, those guys, too. What was I supposed to do, be less good?” 

Dick shrugged and took a sip of his soda water. It was true - one didn’t turn down an appointment to the Staff, and it was a good opportunity for Nixon, a chance to put his talents to good use. But his departure meant that Dick wasn’t just losing a friend - he was losing an ally, and in the constant battle of attrition that was putting up with Herbert Sobel, allies were about the only thing Dick had going for him. The new officers were still an unknown quantity - and Dick’s fear was that they would arrive, and one or more of them would choose to side with the C.O.

Another man appeared at the bar, drink already in hand. “Am I interrupting?”

“No, no,” Dick said, taking his glass with him as he moved over to make room for the newcomer, glad for the interruption. “Just the man. Lieutenant Lewis Nixon, Lieutenant Harry Welsh, just in from OCS - by way of the 82nd,” he couldn’t help adding, trying to make a joke. “And your _ replacement _ .”

Welsh was a short bantam of a man, with ruddy hair, freckles, a sort of pugnacious smile that seemed ready to take all comers, a boxer’s lightness on his feet and a habitual jokester look about the eyes. He offered a hand to shake. “Don’t hold it against me, now,” he said with a grin. “Congratulations on your promotion.”

“If you wanna call it that.” Nixon took the offered hand and shook firmly on it. “You'll learn him pretty quickly,” he offered, pointing a chin at Dick. “No flaws, no vices, and no sense of humor.”

Harry nodded. “So I’ve heard.”

That, at least, made both Nixon and Winters pause. “What, they’re already talking about him at Battalion? How your star has risen, Dick! Maybe there’s hope for a promotion yet.”

Harry chuckled, giving Dick an apologetic glance as he tried to explain himself. “I’m sorry, I should have said earlier - one of the other officers on my course came out of Toccoa. We spent most of the train ride here going over our assignments.”

Dick and Lewis exchanged a glance. “I didn’t know we’d sent anyone.” It wasn’t completely unheard of, for some of the noncoms to be selected to go and sit for the officer’s exam, but they hadn’t heard of anyone from any of the other companies going. Of course no one from Easy had gone; It was highly unlikely that Sobel would have ever paid someone the compliment of telling them they had done their job well, and, by extension, could, given enough time, eventually do his.

“Well, I’ll introduce you, then. I think we’ve both been assigned to you all in Easy, as a matter of fact. Hell of an officer - made some of us 82nd guys look like real chumps.” Harry turned and motioned to someone in the press up near the edge of the room, rotating through the silent hand signs for ‘form up on me’ and waited, smiling, as the other officer pushed through the crowd. “You fellows know Joan Warren?”

And so it was. The same old Joan, with a lieutenant’s bar on her collar and a sharp crease on her trousers, hair in a new and immaculate set under her garrison cap, the very picture that recruiting posters are made out of - and a far cry from the dirty, sweat-stained private in PT gear that they were used to. Her uniform showed signs of tailoring, a better class of jacket than most of them (with, perhaps, the exception of Nixon) were used to wearing. And in the shadow of her cap and the crook of her lip, there was just a hint of that debutante in the old photographs the newspapers had run for weeks on end, a girl in white with a mystery in her smile, daring the viewer to try her.

A  _ woman _ in white, Dick reminded himself, sitting up a little straighter in his chair and remembering one of Annie Sutton’s sermons on the topic. _ Girls _ were still in school.  _ Women _ joined the army, and became lieutenants, and merited salutes and the benefit of the doubt.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t Saint Joan, come back to conquer France with the Five-oh-Six.” Nixon said with a hard-to-read smile, holding out a hand for her to shake. “So, they made an honest woman out of you.”

“Something like that,” Joan replied, taking the handshake with a reserved look. “Turns out they don’t like buck privates turning up in the society pages. It ruins the look.” It was a bold statement, especially to a man who still outranked her, and more words, Dick thought, than he’d ever heard her speak together at one time. (But then, ‘yes, sir’ was a complete sentence.)

“Yes, she’s getting a social secretary any day now,” Harry cut in with a smile.

It was as if a switch had flipped when he spoke - Joan rolled her eyes - an animation neither Dick nor Lewis had ever seen her use, and turned to him, threatening through her smile, “If I didn’t like you, Harry…”

This was a side of her the officers, at least, had never seen - the leader, the would-be sergeant, sure, but Joan the friend, the jokester, the co-conspirator? It was a new look for a woman they might have said they knew already. Harry, obviously, had no such struggle - she was his classmate, and, it seemed, his friend. He held his hands up in mock surrender. 

“Okay, okay - but they need to know! This woman,” he said, wrapping an arm proudly around Joan’s shoulder, “spent every single weekend pass doing a solo lecture circuit of every garden club and charity luncheon on the eastern seaboard. You should hear her talk, it’s quite good.”

“What’s it on?” Nixon asked, taking another sip of his drink. 

“The expanding role for women in the US Army,” Joan said, a touch evasive.

“Oh?” One could almost ignore the disdain in Lewis’ voice - almost.

“I didn’t run my feet bloody to ride a desk for the duration,” she said, almost savagely. “Women’s clubs write a lot of letters to their congressmen when they’re not clutching their pearls.”

Watching them circle each other, Dick was realizing something, something he hadn’t put together before: Joan and Nix were of the same class and tribe, East Coast collegians with old family names. His mother would have lunched with hers at the country club, her father golf with his. They were known to each other, in the sense that they knew the same _kinds_ of people, and would have attended the same parties, and played by the same rules, and it showed in their demeanor, the almost playful way that Nixon was probing her defenses, and the ruthless, take-no-prisoners way that Joan was responding. He already knew her, and she, on many counts, already knew him. 

For a moment the two of them just stared, Nixon calm and cool behind his rocks glass and Joan looking very much like she’d like nothing better than to punch the smug look right off his face. It was he who broke first, chuckling and setting down the glass. “Remind me never to introduce you to my mother, Lieutenant,” Lewis said with a smile. “You’d be terrifying together.”

“Congratulations on the commission,” Dick said, ignoring Lewis and quietly shaking her hand. “We’re lucky to have you back.”

Her eyes met his, the heat of her exchange with Nix cooling in her gaze. Her handshake was firm and fair, a little bit of callus on her palm from climbing too many ropes courses. It was a hand that meant to do things, and do them well. “Thank you.”

But there was no time for further niceties - Sobel was pushing his way through the press of officers on his way to the bar, looking around with the air of a man who has a lot of things on his mind and can’t quite be bothered with the task immediately at hand. Dick instinctively sat up a little straighter again, half-wondering if even here, in the officer’s club, on their night off, Sobel would find something to criticize.

“Lieutenant Winters, I was told that our replacement officers arrived today and I’d like to be introduced,” Sobel said, looking around as though he expected it to be announced in neon somewhere. ”It’s not a good look to keep new men waiting.”

Dick shelved the comment he’d been forming in his head about how if waiting was a bad look he should have been in the company office this morning, which was how Dick had met Harry already, as this was neither the place, the time, nor the person to deliver it to. He nodded to Harry and Joan. “They’re right here, sir.” 

Sobel turned, looked, and, looking again, pulled up short, and everyone forgot their poker faces for just a moment while they watched his face cycle through a vast array of emotions somewhere between rage and blind fear. Joan snapped a salute, her form impeccable, leaving Harry scrambling to follow her lead. “Sir!” 

A fish out of water would have been more comfortable. “Didn’t ...realize we were expecting guests this evening,” Sobel said, looking around as if he half expected a photographer to jump out and shout “SMILE” while a flashbulb went off. All Dick could think at that moment was  _ How typical of him to assume that rank is fake and she didn’t earn it. _

“Lieutenant Warren was just telling us she’s been assigned back to the company,” Lewis said, trying not to let his smirk get too wide, safe behind his glass and his recent promotion to Battalion. “We’re lucky to get her - first in her class at OCS, Lieutenant Welsh here was just saying.”

Harry nodded through the lie, though Sobel didn’t seem to know what to do with this, looking from Nix to Winters to Welsh to Joan as though he were still expecting someone to say this was a joke - but none came. 

“Wouldn’t have thought we’d be - ahem - seeing you back here.”

But Joan Warren was not here to be cowed, or intimidated, and certainly not by the likes of Herbert Sobel. She wasn’t pretending to be a nobody anymore, and it showed. Here was a woman none of them had ever seen, a sun come out in full splendor, and Dick was reminded, vaguely, of an image he’d seen in a history book of Elizabeth rallying her troops at Tilbury. “Well, it was this or the Eisenhower staff, sir,” she said, absolutely serious and not playing games with anyone, taking particular relish as Sobel blanched at the suggestion that Joan could have joined the headquarters of  _ the entire Allied Expeditionary Force _ as easy as kiss your hand. “I had my pick. I told them I’d like to see Europe first with the Airborne.”

Sobel was still at a loss for words, and he settled for a nod. “Well, carry on.” And just like that, he turned around and disappeared back into the crowd, looking a little shell-shocked, obviously having forgotten the reason for which he’d come in this direction.

“And now you’ve met Captain Herbert Sobel,” Nixon supplied, for Harry’s benefit, since, in the shock of seeing Joan, they still technically hadn’t been introduced. “Easy Company C.O. and ...indecisive warlord.”

“As well as a misogynist bastard and a piss-poor map reader,” came Joan’s swift, unfeeling addition. Nixon nearly spit out his drink, staring at Joan with wide-eyed wonder, his joy palpable. 

“And I’m going up to Battalion to miss this! Goddamn. Why couldn’t you have told someone you were Jack Pershing’s niece sooner?” Joan gave an almost bored shrug, and Nixon, both impressed and annoyed, rolled his eyes and flagged down the bartender. “Whatever this woman is drinking, on my tab, please. The least I can do for that beautiful performance. Splendidly done. The...the staff. Jesus.” 

Harry, for his part, was still processing. “Wait, were you _serious_ about Eisenhower’s staff?” he said suddenly. “Jesus, Joanie, you have to tell me these things.”

Ice thus broken, conversation resumed as normal; Lewis, in his element, now quizzing Joan and Harry in a much less intrusive way about OCS, leaving Dick to hang back and study the picture, Harry all Irish charm and bluster, half a beer into his evening, Joan slightly more reserved, but warming to the room, her barely-touched gin rickey beading moisture onto the bar. But he couldn’t help coming back to the way she’d looked Sobel in the eye and calmly eviscerated him with that line about Eisenhower. It was the same look, he realized, that had been in her eyes that day that Sobel had broken Eileen’s nose, and he knew now what it meant - 

_ When I kill you, they will never find your body. _

And the little voice in his head said, in reply,  _ Guess that’s one less thing to worry about - if you were looking for allies, Joan Warren’s already on your side. _

\--

The crowd had thinned out considerably by the end of the night, either because the money for booze wasn’t there or the shine of the club had worn off, but there were still a few stalwarts hanging on to the dregs of the evening as the bartenders began checking their watches.

Nixon, of course, was still around, along with a few guys from Dog Company, Meehan and Speirs, shooting the breeze about the promotions to battalion, and the newly arrived officers. It had come out that Harry Welsh had been knocked back to private six times in his time with the Army, and that seemed to gain him some friends, his reputation as a fighter adding to his appeal. He, too, was still here, jacket open and tie loose, the glass in his hand his...fourth or fifth of the night. (It turned out that, holding true to type, the scrappy lieutenant was both hard fighting and hard drinking.)

“Hey, Welsh,’ Meehan said, leaning over his chair, confident now they would not be overheard. “One Irishman to another - What’s the deal with Warren?”

“What, Joan?” There were nods, and Harry looked around, his smile just a little brassy for the amount of beer he’d consumed, and considered his options. “Okay, I'll bite,” he said, getting comfortable in his chair as he fished in his pocket for his cigarettes and his lighter. “You want to know what I really think? For the first...two weeks of OCS, I ignored her. Famous girl with a famous uncle, so what. She's a...a publicity stunt, she's a joke. But she runs, and she trains, and she takes every last curveball they throw her, and she never asks for a break, and she works  _ like a dog _ . And...she's  _ smart _ \- has answers to things. One day we're taking a test, and I've been dumb, been up a little too late the night before, and I haven't studied, so I decide to go out on a limb and copy her answers - every single one of 'em. Kid stuff.” 

Harry paused, took another draw from his cigarette. “We get our grades back. I've aced the thing. She's gotten an 82.” He let it sink in. “They weren’t going to  _ let  _ her win. They took some points on the word problems, but all her work is there, and it's the same damn work as mine. I told her afterwards what I'd done - and she could have gotten angry at me, but she didn't, because Joan doesn't get mad - she gets even. And I...could do with a little more of that, from time to time,” he admitted with a shrug. “So, you can second guess and say what you want, but she’s a good officer, and a good friend, and she’s going to be a damn fine addition to this unit.” He stood up, stretching, looking at the faces around him. “And since I like you all, I’ll do you the service of not telling her you asked.”

Meehan sat up, unconvinced. “Why, ‘cause she’ll run crying to her uncle?”

Harry snorted, shaking his head and draining his glass. “You’d only wish she had.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winters' thoughts on leadership needing to present a united front or look like a team are paraphrased from Beyond Band of Brothers: The War Memoirs of Dick Winters.
> 
> Nixon's mother was Doris Ryer Nixon, a West Coast socialite and philanthropist. Her family owned an entire island in the San Francisco Bay, she started Guide Dogs for the Blind, and did a lot of fundraising during World War One and Two. Everything I've read says she was pretty much a force of nature and a formidable lady, and I'm sure, had Lewis seen her during the Christmas holidays, she would have had Some Thoughts to share with her son about the Paragals. (On a more modern barometer, she's also independently famous enough to have her own wikipedia page and it's more than two lines long.) 
> 
> A gin rickey was F. Scott Fitzgerald's favorite drink. It's soda water, lime, and gin - a very no-frills bar order.
> 
> In June and July of 1943, Allied planners were just starting to put wheels on the plan that would eventually become Operation Overlord; Eisenhower was still overseeing the African/ Mediterranean Theater and wouldn't become Supreme Commander Allied Expeditionary Force - Europe until December. But he's still a big name, and would have still provoked the resulting punch in the gut to Sobel.
> 
> The scene with Harry at the end was one of the first things I wrote for him - I was trying to come up with a way that he and Joan could become friends if he, too, didn't think much of Miss Society Pages.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the exercise goes, so goes the war. Easy Company is back out in the field with their new officers. Are the new men (and woman) up to leading?

Armies, it can be said, run on many things - steady supply lines, detailed planning, strong leadership.

Presently lacking some of these, right now Easy Company was running on a thin blend of camaraderie and coffee.

Camp Mackall's coffee was an unremarkable affair - dark, fragrant, staff-of-life stuff that you could stand a spoon up in, served out of gigantic urns in the mess area and drunk, in increasing quantity, by footsore soldiers and down-at-heart noncoms alike, and if the caffeine didn't chase your cares away - well, at least it was warm. Most preferred to drink it black, reminding the others that milk was going to be a luxury where they were going, and sugar perhaps nonexistent. But give them that tiny thing, and they'd try anything once - even if it meant bunking out in the rain again.

("What, they're out?!" someone exclaimed at breakfast one morning as the cooks were changing the urns. As one, the reply came thundering back, " _ WAR PROFITEERING _ ." )

“New officers coming on today,” Alex Penkala said, sliding back into his seat with a second helping of powdered eggs, the yellow mass already congealing a little bit on his mess tray.

“Penk, I don’t much care if they’re little green men from Mars,” Skip said breezily. “As long as they’re not air-headed U of I boys pretending to be cowboys. Now let me finish my coffee. About the only thing I get to look forward to these days.” He held his mug under his nose and breathed heavily. “Ah, the sweet smell of fresh joe. Nothing like it in the world.”

“That’s not fresh, Skip,” Connie rolled her eyes. “My grandfather learned how to roast his own beans when he was working on a freighter. That was coffee. This is…” she eyed her mug suspiciously. “Something else.”

“Thought your Gramp was a farmer,” Penkala said in between bites, shoveling eggs into his mouth.

“He was. But he was a sailor for a few years to make money so he could immigrate. Wanted to come to America with my grandma, buy some land. It was good money, he got to see the world - and learn about real coffee,” she added pointedly.

“A freighter - think my uncle did that for a while,” Malarkey said. “What line?”

Connie paused, realizing she was in too deep now to stop. “Deutsche Ost-Afrika.” The German was heavy on her tongue, perfectly accented, probably from a lifetime of hearing her grandfather say the name. For a moment, no one spoke, though everyone was thinking  _ oh, yeah, Schmidt’s a ...German name, isn’t it _ ? “Practically marched my dad down to the recruiting office as soon as war was declared,” she said, as if trying to gain back some ground. “Last time. And when they got home, he took all his family papers out in the yard and burned ‘em - everything he’d brought from home, photographs, letters - anything in German. He was American, he said. He wanted to be American. He’d never spoken much German with his children, but he… he never lost the accent.” 

“He still alive?” Skip asked, his coffee forgotten on the table in front of him.

Connie nodded. “Not moving too quick, but yeah, he’s still around. He’s got a map up on the wall next to the radio and everything. He knows where I am.”

It was a moment for them all to remember the radios of their own homes, and the mothers and fathers, grandparents and aunts and uncles who sat around them waiting anxiously for news. “I’m sure he’s real proud, Connie,” Skip ventured, the seriousness of it all a new look for him - though not a bad one. “Your dad, too.”

Connie sniffed, took another sip of her own coffee. “Dad’s still got shrapnel in his leg and a bad cough from the gas, so he’s not exactly thrilled with my choices right now. But someone’s gotta get dirty and do the fighting, so...it might as well be me.”

“Let’s hope the new officers aren’t afraid to get dirty, either.”

“What, Don, you saying you don’t like Captain Shiny Shoes?” Skip asked Malarkey with a grin, as Lipton appeared at the door to the mess and shouted for Easy to assemble at the motor pool in twenty minutes for the day’s maneuvers - full gear and full pack.

Malarkey rolled his eyes, tossing his dishes into the bin on the way towards the door. “I’m saying as long as they can do the job, I’ll take the damn Martians.”

Sobel came into the courtyard of the motor pool like he owned the place, leather jacket immaculate and garrison cap just so - unlike Winters, who was dressed, as they all were, in fatigues for a day of maneuvers. The new officers were in step behind him, a shorter fellow and a somewhat taller one who looked oddly familiar under the helmet. There were squints and there were stares, as one by one, the bush telegraph of elbows and whispers sent the news through the assembled soldiers like a wave. “Aw, hell, no,” Judy was heard to utter.

"Buckle up, boys," Randleman said, to no one in particular, "Saint Joan's back."

“Lieutenant Saint Joan, looks like,” Skip said, looking pleased. “This is  _ much better  _ than the Martians.”

“Is it?” Penkala asked.

Connie stared, almost unable to believe it. But there was no lie. Under her helmet, with the new bar on her collar, Joan looked - distant, somehow, standing behind Sobel and Winters, waiting to be announced, sharing a conversation with the man next to her, with whom she seemed to be on good terms. She thought Joan was maybe introducing people - she could see her gaze picking through the crowd, her lips moving slightly. There was a wariness in her eyes, an unease - and if Connie didn’t know her better, she almost would have said Joan looked ...afraid. She met Connie’s eye, and the woman instinctively smiled - and for a moment, Joan smiled back.  _ So she knows she’s got at least one friend,  _ Connie thought to herself. 

“You wanna argue with those butterbars?” Cobb said, sitting down next to the mortar squad looking like someone had just stolen his ice cream. “Goddamn Army gave her lying ass a goddamn promotion.” Judy looked like she could have kissed him - though the same could not be said for too many of the other people sitting around them.

“I don’t care what she is,” Bill Guarnere said strongly, turning around to fix Cobb with a stare that could have peeled paint. “She ate the same shit we did for four months. If I gotta follow one of these lulus, I know she can read a goddamn map.” 

“You would stick up for her, Gonorrhea. She feel you up again lately?” 

Bill’s jaw tightened. “You wanna imply something to my face, Cobb?”

“You got something against women in authority, Cobb?” Connie jumped into the conversation with knife-edged interest. “‘Cause I’d  _ love _ to see what Sergeant Gordon thinks of that.”

Cobb looked briefly uncomfortable, reading the landscape around him with growing regret. But he’d laid his course, and he was going to follow it, hell or high water. “Yeah, fine, so we’ve got some girls in the company. But a lady looey ain’t gonna amount to anything. Sutton was fine, but what does Miss Society Pages know about leading a war? She’s only here ‘cause her uncle’s a general and she photographs nice.”

“Probably gave the examining board the same handjob she gave Gonorrhea,” Cobb’s buddy Hale said from his other side.

“Like to see you say that to her face,” Randleman said peaceably, watching Hale turn white and shut up, which made Bill, at least, smile. Every one of them knew perfectly well what would have happened to anyone who dared such a thing, and they’d all seen how Joan could land a punch - and a kick to the ribs.

“EASY COMPANY.” Sobel was in fine shouting form this morning, and they settled down in close order, wondering what they were doing today if Sobel wasn’t in gear to go along. “Owing to several recent promotions to battalion, we are adding a few new officers to our ranks. Second Lieutenant Harry Welsh, and...Second Lieutenant Joan Warren.” Sobel pronounced the second ‘lieutenant’ as if the word suddenly tasted like raw rhubarb. “Welsh will be taking Lieutenant Nixon’s place in First Platoon, and Warren will be joining Third.” He paused to let this sink in.

“For today’s exercise, and to give our new officers a taste of our style here in Easy, we've prepared a special treat - a friendly game of capture the flag." His smile suggested this would be anything but friendly. "The first team to surprise and overtake the other - or the team in possession of the objective at the end of three hours - wins."

There were smiles and nods - a little bit of good, old-fashioned competition had never hurt anyone, had it? These were the soldiers who’d signed up to be the best of the best, and they didn’t just love this kind of thing - they  _ thrived  _ on it.

"We’ll also be simulating field conditions following a disordered and distributed jump with landings outside designated zones - so to that end,” Sobel went on, “I will be splitting Second Platoon. Squad One will go with Lieutenant Welsh, and Squad 2 will be with Lieutenant Warren. Mortar team, you’re also with Welsh. The trucks outside will take you to your respective drop points, where you’ll be given your armbands. Sergeants, dismiss the men.”

Lipton, Ranney, Martin and the rest took over, shouting for squads and platoons to form up as the trucks started their engines, belching exhaust out into the yard, encouraging them all to move a little quicker.

“Guess she’s gonna be our problem today, Cobb,” Guarnere said with a shrug as they gathered their gear and began packing themselves into the waiting deuce and a halfs. “Best of luck with the leprechaun there.”

As exercises went, it might have a popular choice, but it certainly wasn’t standard - Dick didn’t much like this idea of pitting half the company against the other, but they did it often enough for baseball or basketball, and that seemed to work. He was glad in the knowledge that Harry and Joan seemed to know each other already, and would thus be uncompetitive in the usual ways. And he was _ sure _ that, after he’d left the officer’s club, a deal of time had been spent briefing Harry on the C.O.’s shortcomings, if it hadn’t been done already on the train. Harry wasn’t hard to like, or to get along with, and he wondered, briefly, if he, Dick, didn’t owe some of that to whatever Joan had told Harry on the way here.  _ Obviously she said some nice things about me and Nix. _

In a few minutes they were all packed and loaded, Sobel following the convoy in the company’s Jeep, Evans at the wheel. Joan and Dick were the last ones into the final Third Platoon truck, and as soon as they were in, the flap was drawn shut and the entirety of the vehicle plunged into darkness, the only light an occasional flash from a flapping side panel. 

For the entire thirty minutes out to the drop point, no one spoke. The smell of badly-dried canvas and gun oil was everywhere. Someone coughed. A coat rustled as someone rearranged the way they were sitting. But not a single word emerged. Dick tried to study the faces in the dark, but they eluded him, pale flashes that came and went as the sides of the truck shifted. The only face he could really see was Joan’s, across the aisle, and her gaze was down, studying a point on the floor in between his boots, her hands wrapped tightly around her map case, which Sobel had passed to her just before they’d gotten into the truck. When they disembarked, the two officers were the first ones out - and surprised to find that the Jeep had apparently followed their section of the convoy.

“Thought in the briefing he said he was going with Harry,” Joan said quietly, turning around as if to survey the ground so that Sobel couldn’t see her lips move. Dick made a sound of agreement.

“Warren!” Sobel still seemed incapable of using her rank. “I’m going to remind you that Lieutenant Winters is with you in an eyes and ears capacity only and will not give advice, Lieutenant, is that clear?" He fixed Dick with the kind of frown that implied terrible punishments for the man who crossed it.

"Crystal, sir," Joan replied for the both of them, meeting Dick's eye and nodding curtly.

Sobel smiled. "Now, you'll need an aide for the exercise - I’d like to suggest Tipper. He usually serves as mine and I've never had a problem."

Joan nodded again, her expression curiously fixed. "Thank you, sir, very kind."

Dick tried to keep his own expression neutral, knowing full well what Sobel was doing. He'd blamed Ed Tipper's handling of the map for the failure of the last several exercises, and he was convinced that it was this (rather than his own inability to read said map) that had let him down. Sobel wanted Joan to fail, and he was trying to set her up to do so, as well as tying Dick’s hands when it came to doing anything about it. If Dick knew his C.O., (and he liked to think he did) there would doubtless be something faulty with Joan’s map, or her instructions, or something else equally immature. They were going to war - was it so hard to simply accept the soldiers you were given and move on? 

"Right!" Sobel checked his watch. "Lieutenant Welsh's team should be reaching their start point now and I will be joining them shortly. You will have... three hours. Good luck."

And with that, he climbed back into the jeep and roared off with Evans, the deuce and a halfs following closely. The group watched them leave, some of them still tying on their armbands, and then turned, reluctantly, back to Dick - who directed his gaze silently to Joan, a cue for them all to follow.  _ She’s in charge today, not me.  _ Joan’s attention, however, was wrapped up in studying her map, and Dick noticed the case was missing its usually standard pencils and compass - probably now riding over to First Platoon in Sobel’s pocket.  _ Of course he did.  _

She took the map out of its sleeve, re-oriented it, checked the cover of the case for a writing implement, and, without saying a word, produced a short red propelling pencil from the inside of her jacket pocket, tapping the end on the clipboard for a moment. An officer, carry her own supplies? Dick had to smile - Sobel would never have dreamed it. "Soldiers, on me." The group pressed in closer. "So. Our objective is ...here, and we are...approximately..." she measured with her fingers, looked around and checked her landmarks again, the placement of the road and the distant rail line, "here." 

It was a better start than Sobel usually made, and her calculation was accurate - she'd been paying attention to their speed and how much time they'd spent in the truck. Dick watched as she explained the problem, thinking aloud to the group as she went through the briefing she'd been given before they left camp, the ‘intelligence’ on the position of the other team, the disposition of the ground and what they knew about ‘the enemy’ and how he would expect them to move. 

It was more like a classroom than a field exercise, and it annoyed him - she was better than this! Why not just go?  _ An officer's not looking for consensus _ , he thought angrily to himself.  _ This is not the place to take a vote. _ And then he realized - she was showing them that she knew what she was doing. Unlike Sobel, who told no one his thoughts, shot first and asked questions of the problem later, she was laying out her plan, and explaining possible deviations, letting them know that she was already asking the questions. If it looked like she was explaining this to a class, it was because she was - the examining board of her fellow soldiers, every single one of them wondering if she'd be worth her salt in the field.

_ She's earning back some of their trust, _ he realized, and he softened a little.

Plan established, she looked up at the group, putting her pencil back in her pocket and standing up. "Our three hours have started and I don’t want to lose any time, so let's pack this up and get moving."

Tipper appeared at her elbow. "Would you like me to take the map, ma'am? Keep your hands free?"

"Thank you - but before I do, Tipper, how does this usually work?" she asked, buttoning up and holding out the map case.

He paused, confused. “Ma’am?”

"Do you misplace the map now, or later?"

Tipper stared until he realized she was smiling at him, and took back the map with a bashful look. "Usually later, ma'am." 

_ Sounds like Marjorie Gordon’s been keeping her in the loop, _ Dick thought to himself, remembering that they’d been close in basic. What other company secrets did Joan already know about? She nodded, just the same way as if he’d reported back on what was being served for lunch. "Right, well, in the interest of winning, I'll ask you to hold off." More chuckles. "And I think I’ll keep my pencil. Move out!"

And that was that - no grandstanding, no big display, no ‘hi-yo, silver’. Just business. Dick allowed himself a small smile and fell in behind her in the column, fairly confident that unless Sobel was going to let Harry Welsh cheat, First Platoon was going to lose.

_ She’ll do all right, our Saint Joan. _

* * *

On the other side of the exercise, First Platoon was waiting.

It had been short work for them to collect at their drop point and reach the objective, an old concrete bunker from some long-dead firing range that was slowly being re-claimed by the woods. Now it remained only for them to wait, holding their positions in the crumbling trench that surrounded the bunker, and let Third come to them.

Martin picked his way down the line to Marjorie, careful to keep himself low. “So,” he whispered, “what do we think so far about Welsh?”

Marjorie did, indeed, have some thoughts about Welsh, especially since Joan's letters hadn't been particularly instructive in the matter of his disposition in the field. She knew that he liked to drink, that he was from coal country and came from a family of miners, and that he had a girlfriend named Kitty, about whom he was crazy. None of these things had given her a very good picture to go on, but she trusted Joan not to make friends with idiots, and what'd she'd seen so far this morning had given her hope. So far, Welsh had performed admirably- he was rational, he was cool, and he was keeping his head about him, which was impressive, given that his C.O., who was supposed to be observing silently, was taking any and all opportunities to make suggestions about his handling of the exercise.

“I think he's doing the best he can under the circumstances,” she allowed. Martin scowled. “Come on, Johnny, give him a break. It's his first damn day and Sobel all of declared open season on lieutenants whose names start with W.”

Martin did the math. “...that's all of them.”

“That's my point.” Marjorie tried to think of a different way to explain this. “Joan says he's a good guy - a little quick, but not trigger happy. He'd be doing fine if the Black Swan wasn't trying to bite his ear off. If we lose this thing, it's not going to be Harry Welsh's fault.”

“Suit yourself.” Martin remained unimpressed.

Marjorie decided to try a different approach. “I would have thought he was your  _ people _ , Johnny.” Martin looked at her like the insinuation that he could be included in any tribe that included Harry Welsh was deeply offensive to him. “The  _ scrappy  _ kind of people,” she elaborated. “Joan says he got busted back to private six times during basic. For brawling.”

“Six?!" Johnny realized the volume of his voice and instinctively ducked, before repeating, at a much lower volume, "You're telling they demoted that bastard  _ six times  _ for starting fights?" There was a little bit of grudging respect in his eyes now.

Marjorie nodded. "And made him sergeant again every single time after. They knocked him to OCS thinking it would keep him out of more trouble.”

Martin looked back at the lieutenant (now pointedly studying his map with an expression that wouldn’t have been out of place on a particularly vexed statue of Patience.) “And now he's stuck with Sobel riding his ass. Six times, Jesus."

They must have been talking too loudly, for Welsh and Sobel both looked down the line for a moment, and Martin hung low, hoping neither would notice him out of place, and then, conversation really at at end, with a nod to Marjorie, moved back to his own squad’s position, the conversation obviously having given him something to think about.

The three hours were almost up, and they had seen neither hide nor hair of Third Platoon. This was usually where the exercise broke down - the waiting. Silence made Sobel jumpy - and as they approached the mark that indicated they’d won, the Easy Company C.O. was getting visibly restless - an emotion that was unfortunately starting to rub off. “Did they get lost?” Julie asked Marjorie, her wireless set looking heavier by the minute. Marjorie shrugged.

Far to the left, a bird called, and another, wider still on the right, answered.  _ Those weren’t there before,  _ Marjorie thought to herself, flashing back to a very cold Saturday morning with her father out in a deer blind.  _ Something’s up.  _ But whether they were in the blind, or they were the deer, she really couldn’t say.

There was a sharp crack, like a branch breaking, to the right, and then, almost immediately following, a flurry of movement - bodies moving between trees.

Everyone's ears perked up, the attitude around the bunker suddenly electric. Here it was - the play was being made. More branches, to the left and the right - where had Third come from? And, perhaps more importantly - where were they now? The trees were making the sound echo, and it was hard to get a clear picture - were those branches breaking with the falls of feet?

The figures in the foreground were slowly advancing, it seemed - every few moments another soldier moved between trees, like a ghost.

"Let's get 'em," Marjorie heard Sobel whisper to Welsh, but Welsh clearly wasn't buying it - he was in a good defensive mode, he had the objective, and the exercise was his if he could hold out for twenty minutes more. They’d have to cross a field to reach the flag, and he liked his odds.

The ground here was pockmarked with old shell holes, the earth uneven, and suddenly, one of the figures darted forward from the trees and dove into one, a second and third figure following. "She's attacking!" Sobel hissed, as if Harry couldn't well see that for himself. But Marjorie had been watching the trees, counting movements - this was only two squads or so. Where was the rest of Third? But she didn’t have time to meditate on this further; the helmet with the white stripe on the front was clambering out of her foxhole, ducking down and crossing the field in the direction of another hole with the obvious intention to draw fire.  _ Why is she running?  _ Marjorie thought to herself.  _ She knows damn well that riflemen crawl.  _

Sobel stood up, his sidearm pointed directly at her. "You're dead, Lieutenant." 

Marjorie's eyes tracked past Sobel and widened, and, catching Welsh's eye, she gestured to the top of the bunker behind them. Welsh followed her gaze and silently swore. "With respect, sir, so are we."

"Flag's here, ma'am!" From atop the bunker, Bill Guarnere waved the E company guidon, far too pleased with himself, as riflemen with blue armbands appeared around the ends of the trench. “And that’s 11:52.”

Sobel didn’t know where to look. “How did she - how did she do that?”

Harry looked ready to explode. "Diversionary tactic out front, while the second part of her force under Sergeant ..." He looked around, still trying to remember everyone's name.

"Lipton," Joan supplied, picking herself up from where she'd been 'shot' and coming back to join the conversation, the whole half of her fatigues covered in pine needles where she’d taken a dive into that foxhole.

"Sergeant  _ Lipton _ took half the force around the back, silently overpowered our rear and took the flag." Harry read the whole thing as though he'd been watching from the announcer's booth at a football game - and was none too pleased to do so. Joan nodded, his summary perfect.

Sobel still didn’t know what to think. "But she's dead. They - they don't have an officer now - she's...she's... That negates the whole - "

Dick Winters emerged from wherever he'd been observing with the second team. "She briefed her sergeants before she made her run and handed over her map case, sir. They're prepared to go back into action." Was that a smile playing up around Dick Winters' mouth? Marjorie wouldn't have believed it if she hadn't seen it herself. Well, but he was never a fan of Sobel's, and he’d never had a problem with Sutton. 

“Owe you a drink, Harry,” Joan said, cuffing him on the arm.

“Never met a dead woman who bought me a beer,” Harry replied, obviously still sore about the business but prepared to live with it. “Where the hell did you put ‘em all?”

Joan gestured her group out of the trees, the rest of her riflemen coming out from behind the bunker. “Tell you on the way home?” She looked up and down the trench and made eye contact with Connie, practically beaming with the rest of the mortar squad, and then with Marjorie, still down in the trench. “Sergeant Gordon.”

Marjorie touched the rim of her helmet, smiling at her friend. The ‘on the way home’ was clearly meant for her, too. “Lieutenant.”  _ God, she’s really putting on a face - she looks exhausted.  _

“Easy Company, form up. Marching column,” Winters shouted over them, as men and women alike shouldered guns and mortar bases, dusting needles and debris out of their clothes. “We’re moving out - twelve miles home to lunch.”

“Can’t believe she  _ did that _ ,” she heard Doris say to Irene.

But Marjorie could. She knew Joan, well enough to say that it had not been arrogance, or pride, that had moved her to act. She had not been angling for a medal, or a headline in the paper. She knew her enemy, had known that if it was  _ her  _ doing the running, he would do something dumb like stand up to take his shot. But more to the point, she had read the field, considered her options, and known that there was a good chance she would not come back, and had planned accordingly. 

She had not asked her soldiers to do a thing she was not prepared to do herself - and she had been prepared to take the consequences of that for them, if it meant that they would win. It was a steadying but sobering thought - for as the exercise went, the thinking was, so went the war.  _ I’d be exhausted, too,  _ Marjorie thought to herself.  _ Next time the guns will be loaded.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you thought I was just going to let that war profiteering joke be a one-off, didn't you?
> 
> For a complete history of coffee, including its rapid deployment in World Wars One and Two, Uncommon Grounds: The History of Coffee and How It Transformed Our World, by Mark Pendergrast, is a great read. (Your fun coffee fact of the day: before it was a cup of joe, it was a cup of George - for George Washington coffee, a popular brand of instant coffee during the Great War.)
> 
> Connie's story is, in part, borrowed from my own family history; when my grandmother married my grandfather in the early 50s, her family (who had just lost one of their three sons in the war) was highly suspicious of the fact that he was German. (His family had come to the US in the 1880s.)
> 
> A 'butterbar' is the army slang for a second lieutenant's gold bar rank insignia. The saying is that after you've had enough experience and worn the gold shine off, they promote you to first lieutenant, which is a single silver bar.
> 
> Since we never really meet any of the other Easy Company lieutenants until later in the show, I'm taking some liberties with company organization. I think they should have 4 lieutenants right now - an XO and one for each of the platoons. (This increases to 2 lieutenants per platoon for Normandy - for easy replacements.)
> 
> The deuce and a half is army slang for a two and a half ton truck. They can seat between twelve and sixteen soldiers, and have a removable canvas cover that fits over detachable oxbows. They're also sometimes called a CCKW or a Jimmy. Most of the time when we see Easy traveling by truck, it's in something of this type. (Yours truly knows how to drive one. It's a beast.)
> 
> Harry Welsh really did loose his sergeant's stripes six times during basic, though the reason the 82nd decided to send him to Officer Candidate School after that is unclear to me.
> 
> A guidon is the company flag, so called because during the age of marching armies, a company or regiment could be 'guided on' by the color.
> 
> Joan's assault on a fixed position would NOT be taught in the Army War college - I've ad-libbed for maximum dramatic effect.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One stage of the journey is over, another is beginning, and Easy Company is back on a train.

It had only been six months since Dick had been on a train, but it seemed like forever since they'd dropped their bags in Fayetteville, waiting for the trucks that would take them out to Camp Mackall. And now the trucks were dropping them back at the station, a hive of activity as the entire 506th packed themselves into passenger cars, bags marked 'Port of Embarkation', final destination yet unknown, one stage of the journey over, another beginning.

It seemed so strange, to think that all these people, all these soldiers, were going towards a common purpose, that across Army bases and camps all over the country the same scenes were being repeated, hundreds upon hundreds more times, duplicating and multiplying all this effort, all of them converging towards a single goal, a single point on the horizon. It felt staggering.

"Hey, Dick!" Lewis's voice (and a punch on the arm) brought him down out of his woolgathering. "Honestly, leave you alone for five minutes and you're off in the clouds. Go get a seat, will you, or all the best ones will be taken.” Lew looked suddenly apologetic - had he looked disappointed, somehow? “I’d offer mine, but I’m up front with the staff,” he explained, shrugging and looking around. "Ay - Joan! Make sure this kid gets on the train, okay? We can't leave him here."

Joan, waiting in line to board with her barracks bag in hand, looked up. "You need me to make sure no one steals his lunch money, too, Nix?" she shot back.

He grinned. "Could you? That'd be great." 

The mutual antagonism Nix and Joan had started over drinks at the officers club a few weeks ago was showing no signs of waning. Most of the 506’s officers were giving Joan a wide berth, still smarting over the surprise of the parade review, but Nixon was undeterred - and, truth be told, it was almost fun, watching the two of them trade jabs, Nixon flirtatious and Joan rapier-sharp in return. It had helped settle her in some, humanizing her a little, and now everyone was quite used to having her in the officer’s mess, if only because it was a little entertaining. "Ought to put them in pictures," someone had said one night, watching them exchange barbs over dinner. "She could give Rosalind Russell a run for her money." (“Joan would win, running,” came the laconic reply. “Rosalind Russell never had to double-time Currahee.”)

But there were no movie contracts at stake today. Joan only rolled her eyes, watching Nixon disappear into the lead car with the rest of the headquarters staff, and picked up her own bag with a huff before turning back around to Winters. "That was not a dig at you, by the way," she said, her voice much softer as he joined her, dragging his own bag nearer to hers. "I know you're perfectly capable of looking after yourself."

He'd known all along, but it was nice, somehow, to hear her say it. "Can you let Lew know?"

She laughed. "I don't think he'd believe me. Should we find some seats? I  _ was _ waiting for Harry, but Lord knows where he is - he'll catch up eventually. He's a big kid, too, you know." Dick chuckled and followed her up the steps, helping her negotiate her bag through the door. "I think I've finally got Lewis figured out, by the way," she said over her shoulder, muscling her way down the train car. "You're the brother he never got to tease. My brother and cousin are the same way - poke each other all day long, but if someone else gets a punch in, they'll go to war."

“Seems about right,” Dick acknowledged, following her down the car until they found a set of four seats together, intending to save one for Harry, whenever he found them.

“Do  _ you _ have any siblings?” she asked, wrestling the large, sausage shaped bag into the rack above while Dick stepped out of the aisle to let people pass.

“A sister - she's much younger.” He watched her progress with growing concern, but looking up and down the car, this wasn’t easy for anyone - the racks were built for suitcases and trucks, and the large green sacks the army gave them to hold their worldly goods while they were in between bases were neither square nor solid. “Do you want help with that?”

“No, I’m fine. Do yours? I think I’ve got the trick now.” 

He offered her the bag and stepped back further into their seats, half-sitting down so as not to bump his head, and watched her go to work with an idle fascination. His mother might not have liked to see him sitting while a woman did the work, but Joan could be a force of nature when she wanted to be, and sometimes he was finding it was simply easier to let chivalrous impulses be damned and just get out of her way. But if he hadn’t been sitting, he wouldn’t have seen what happened next - as right in his line of view, one of the officers passing by took the opportunity to palm his hand over the seat of her trousers, grabbing a handful of her as though he meant to take it with him, and gave it a good squeeze. 

It was the work of a moment, but Joan was quick off the draw; she whipped around with a smile that could have melted ice and said, just as sunny as can be in a voice that was a few points too loud for the train, "Oh, Lieutenant Vandyke! I hardly knew you were there.  _ Thank you _ , but the next time I need an equipment check, we’ll be in the plane."

Vandyke, a New Yorker with Fox company who liked to think of himself as a gift to women, colored a little seeing the eyes of the train car upon him, every single man there knowing they’d all played at least one game of grab-ass during equipment check, as a joke. No one seemed to find it very funny now. He mumbled some excuse before hurrying along to the next car and the company of his friends. Joan finished with the second bag and looked at Dick. "Window or aisle?" she asked, quite as if nothing had happened, ignoring the stares from the rest of the car.

"Aisle's good," Dick said, letting Joan slip past him, taking the seat opposite.  _ God, and I didn’t even say anything about Vandyke. _

“What?" she asked, and he realized he'd been staring at her. "It's fine - happens all the time. You just have to let them know you won't take it again."

"What - the -” He made a vague gesture with his hand, almost unable to repeat the curve he’d seen to Vandyke’s fingers, feeling vaguely dirty himself as he did so. He’d never understood why some men thought it their right to palm, prod, or otherwise handle a woman when she hadn’t indicated a desire to have him do so, and he also didn’t understand why some of them persisted when they knew that she was their colleague and their equal - or, in the case of Vandyke, their better, in more ways than one.

She nodded. "It’s gotten better now that most of them have worked out I’m not buying what they’re selling. OCS was worse.”

“Worse?” He was having a hard time imagining worse.

She paused, reconsidered her words. “Mmm - different. Less physical stuff, more...psychological. I'd come back from PT and have my underwear strung up like bunting." She shrugged. "If they were thinking they'd find something fun, I was sorry to disappoint, but it's all standard issue. The silk stayed home."

"Seems ...pretty dumb," he said, trying to cover for the fact that his face was burning at the mention of silk unmentionables.

She nodded. "It is, isn't it? But that was about making me uncomfortable. Letting me know that I had no secrets, that they had power. And they did." She sniffed. “Kind of like... footlocker inspections.”

His face burned to hear her say it, for that had been a particular tool of Sobel’s, the women’s footlocker inspections a thin excuse to rifle through their underwear and smell their perfume. It was one thing to take it from your commanding officer, who was supposed to look out for your best interests, but quite another from the men who were supposed to be your classmates, who were supposed to have your back. Dick had been part of enough schoolboy pranks to know that you couldn’t just let that kind of thing ride, or they’d keep on doing it until they’d run you out of the room crying - and Joan wasn’t the type to cry. "So, what did you do?" 

"Got friendly with the women who ran the laundry and a couple of WACS in the office, swapped some tags. Extras got sent back to the person I thought was responsible. He had a hell of a time at inspection with women's underwear in his footlocker. Didn't have too much of a problem after that." 

As solutions went, it was almost elegant - most of the guys Dick knew would have settled for punching the other fellow and calling it a day, but that felt like it might not have worked in this case - though he also knew Joan could land a punch as well as the next guy. "I had to show I could dish it, too,” she said, mistaking his silence for confusion. “And the girls in the office had a fun time teasing the guy about standing them up on dates. It was a team effort. Turns out nobody took them seriously, either. Everyone won," she said with a smile.

But they had no more time for discussion - Harry was making his way up the aisle, his barracks bag half as big as he was. “You kids save me a seat?”

“Only if you promise not to kick my feet, Harry,” Joan said with a smile. “You said you wanted a window, and here it is.”

“Consider them already kicked,” Harry responded with a grin. “Help a guy out?” He asked, and Dick rose, muscling Harry’s bag into the rack overhead while Harry shucked his coat and negotiated his way into his window seat. “Thanks. Now, I’ve got about a month’s worth of sleep to catch up on, so the first person who wakes me up will probably get socked in the jaw,” he announced.

“We have been advised,” Joan said with a smile. “But if you start snoring, _ I _ will kick _ you _ .”

They all settled in in short order - Harry huddled into a rolled up pullover, Joan produced a book, and Dick pulled out his stationary case, intending to start a letter home. It was the first quiet moment they’d had for a week, and he was overdue in some of his correspondence.

A lurch and a whistle let them know the train had begun moving, and Dick looked up to watch them pull away from the station, the town dropping out of sight as forest began to replace farmfields. Joan was staring out the window, too, her book closed in her lap, and for a moment, Dick wished he had a camera to capture the moment, appreciating the way the light played along her profile, the slight curve of her lip, almost wistful. None of that beautiful debutante in an impractical white dress - this was the photo they should have been running in the papers. A woman in uniform, heading into the unknown, cautious but hopeful, determined and ready to take whatever was dealt her.

The train lurched, and she turned away from the window, and he directed himself back to the pad of paper and the letters - one to Sutton, who had written a few weeks ago hinting, ever so slightly, that she missed them, and would have been glad of their help with her new group of girls, who were apparently very catty, and one to his sister Annie. There was a photograph for inclusion with his sister’s letter, a group shot of several of the officers. He’d wanted to send the photo home so his mother would have a more recent snapshot, but he was putting it with Annie’s letter for a different reason - Joan was crouching in the first row, grinning for the camera. “To prove your brother has  some  cool friends,” he’d written on the back. She’d like that.

The train lurched again, and his attention pulled upwards for a moment, catching a brief flash of Joan turning back down to her book. That was odd. Had ...had Joan been watching him? (The same way he’d been studying her?) No, that was silly - she’d probably been staring at the back wall of the train car, or resting her eyes a moment. It hardly mattered - she was back in her book, and the letter home wasn’t going to write itself.

Several hours later, the letters to both Annies were finished and he’d moved on down the list of correspondence to a friend from school, a girl his mother seemed to be asking about with increasing frequency in her letters. 

“Going my way?” 

He looked up - It was Nixon, on his way down from the front of the train.“Wherever the train takes me,” Dick replied, a little brusque.

“And where's that?”

“Haven't a clue.” He was still feeling a little sore over the way Lew had brushed him off earlier, and, now, for interrupting his letter, but also vaguely interested to hear what he had to say. (And who wouldn’t be? It was the question of the hour! North Africa was finished, Sicily nearly done - would it be Mainland Italy? The Solomons? The 503rd was already in the Pacific, somewhere - and who was to say they wouldn’t be joining them?) 

“Yeah, come on. Take a guess. Atlantic, Pacific, Atlantic.”

“I'm not the battalion intelligence officer,” Dick replied, a little snippy, looking up at Joan. She, too, had given up on her book, watching Nixon with quiet interest. 

His friend preened a little bit. “Well, I, as such,  _ do _ know, but if I told you then I'd have to kill both of you.”

Joan and Dick exchanged glances. “So don't tell us,” Joan replied, deadpan, returning to her book.

But Lewis never was one to sit on a secret, and this one had him vibrating with excitement as he slid into the seat across from Dick and fixing Joan with a pointed smile. “You know, maybe if it's the Pacific, Joan's new Marine buddy can help us out,” he added with a grin. “One of my friends' sisters got very excited when she found out I knew you; apparently you made the About Town page in a lot of New York papers. There was  _ speculation _ .”

Joan did not look happy to tell this story - her face had gotten a little stormy, and the book was snapped shut with an audible noise. “I met him  _ twice, _ Lewis.”

“Joan was about five minutes away from dating a Medal of Honor winner over Christmas,” Lewis told Dick with a grin. “A  _ very handsome _ one, too.” 

“We were seated next to each other at a few official dinners with Army brass while they were deciding where to send me,” Joan explained. “They were trying to sell me on the war bond circuit - and thought the  _ very handsome _ face who defended Henderson Field might be able to win over Cape Warren as well."

"Oh yeah? And what did you think of John Basilone? Nice guy?"

"Well, he certainly thought so,” Joan said, with the tone of voice that said she was pulling some of her punches and would have much more to say on the subject if you caught her where someone else wasn’t listening. “I thought he was a bit of a one track mind."

Nixon gestured for her to go on. "One track of..."

"Well, Lewis, I don't know,” Joan said, laying her hand on Lewis’s knee and fixing him with an almost sensual stare. “But if you've got a hand halfway up a girl's skirt at dinner, and she didn't ask for it to be there, what are  _ you _ thinking about?"

Nixon cleared his throat, considered his life choices a moment and rearranged his own hands, looking down for a moment at Joan’s hand on his leg and then back up to her. “Fair. How'd you get out of that one?”

She chuckled and removed her hand, giving his leg a little friendly pat. “I told him there wasn't any way he could compete with my impossibly rich, handsome, paratrooper boyfriend from New Jersey.”

For the first time since Dick had met him, Lewis looked lost for words. "...you told John Basilone we were dating?"

"I left your name out, if that's what you're worried about,” she said with a flourish, letting him stew in his own surprise before she broke. “No, of course not, Lewis, I told him the women’s middleweight champion of Fort Des Moines taught me how to land a punch, and most of the men in that room knew my father.”

That sounded more like Joan. “And how did he handle that?”

“He took it manfully in stride and went back to his room with a Red Cross hostess instead. She looked  _ very happy _ to be doing her patriotic duty."

Nixon nodded, absorbing all this with silent care and obviously meditating hard on something. Finally he spoke. “...You  _ do _ know I’m going to get some mileage out of that dating joke, don’t you?”

“I would expect nothing less, Lewis.”

He beamed, looking down at his hands, at Joan and her book, and then at Dick. “We’re dating,” he mouthed with a silly grin.

“So, are you telling us where we’re going, or was that story it?” Dick asked, wondering, a little impatiently, if he could return to his letter.

Lewis remembered his purpose. “New York City. Troop ship. England. We're invading Europe, friends.” He took his flask out of his pocket and took a drink, passing it to Dick, who only frowned at him, and then to Joan, who, much to the surprise of the two men, accepted it and tossed back a swig with what looked like practiced ease, swallowing and passing the flask back to Nix, who took it, a little impressed. 

“What?” she asked, looking between their two surprised stares with a smile. “Men didn’t invent the garter flask.”

“Are you telling me you brought one of those?” Nix asked, very excited either about the prospect of another flask, or the thought of Joan’s garters.

“Left it at home,” came the reply, as she returned to her book. “Would have clashed with my wardrobe.”

Nixon grinned. “Protect this woman with your life, Winters, she is a treasure and we must not lose her.” 

“I don’t think she needs protecting, Nix,” Dick said, absolutely serious. His eyes met Joan’s for a moment, intending to apologize as she’d done earlier after the lunch money remark, and he realized she was smiling at him slightly, her eyes almost soft, the kind of look that says a person is happy to be truly seen. She’d heard what he meant to say, and they both returned to what they’d been doing, leaving Nixon to cap his flask and move back to his friends in Battalion, Harry still sleeping soundly despite the ruckus.

* * *

Someone was snoring, and Marjorie didn’t want to know who. \

Information would have required action, and action meant, in this case, that she’d have to wake someone else up, which she really didn’t want to do after they’d all finally settled down for the evening. Sometimes being a sergeant was like being a teacher, and sometimes it was a bit more like being a parent to twelve fractious children, most of whom were taller than you, a good deal heavier, and much more likely to complain when you made them do something they didn’t want to do. Someone (she couldn’t remember now who) had already called her ‘Mom’ once on this trip, and someone else (she thought that might have been Skinny, he seemed the type) had jokingly asked “So, does that make Lipton or Martin Dad?” (“You sassing your mother?” Martin snapped back. “Sit down and shut up.” And, remarkably, Skinny had done so.) 

The door to the previous car slid open, and from it emerged Joan, picking her way down the aisle around the hanging limbs and outstretched feet, gently moving with the sway of the train.   
  
“Hey you,” Marjorie said, glad for the company.

“Thought I’d come down here when everyone else was sleeping so I wouldn’t cause a riot.” She nodded to Lipton, also still awake a few seats down. “Lip.”

He touched his forehead in a vague salute. “Lieutenant.” 

“How’s up front?” Marjorie asked, moving her coat aside so Joan could sit down.

“Same old, same old,” Joan shrugged. “Everyone thinks my ass is fair game. Well, almost everyone,” she added on second thought.

Marjorie snorted, having a pretty fair idea of who the ‘almost everyone’ constituted. It certainly was strange, getting a new take on the lieutenants now that Joan counted herself among their number. She was hearing things she’d never thought she’d hear before - that Lewis Nixon was a flirt, which she could well believe, and Dick Winters surprisingly gentlemanly, which came as no surprise to anyone, that the lieutenants from Fox were more interested in Joan’s ass than her value as a tactical asset, and the lieutenants from Dog seemingly the opposite. It was good, in a way, this quietly expanding network out into other companies. For all that it had been silly, Sobel’s capture the flag exercise wasn’t too far off the mark. Who was to say who they might be called upon to work with in the field, or under whose command they might find themselves after a drop? All they could do was learn their jobs, and those of the men and women next to them, knowing that they were cogs that could easily be fitted into any part of the machine. And what a machine! “Any idea where we’re headed?”

Joan sighed. “Our friendly battalion S2 says the land of fish and chips.” Marjorie nodded. Europe, then. It had seemed more likely, after nearly a year and a half of training. They were a commodity, and the Army had wasted too much time on them to toss them to whatever theatre shouted for them loudest. “Did Ruth finally tell her mother where she was?” Joan asked, breaking the silence. “I never did hear.”

It was one of the many stories that had been interrupted by her abrupt departure before the Christmas leave - Ruth had been debating about whether or not to tell her (devoutly Jewish, somewhat conservative) mother what exactly it was her little girl was actually getting up to in the Army. Most had agreed that telling her the truth would be for the best, and better done sooner rather than later. Marjorie nodded. “She did.” 

A pause. “And?”

“Wasn’t pleased, but didn’t throw her out, either. I think she picked her moment. She’s got some wild stories about family trying to get visas out of Poland when this started,” Marjorie said. “Some of her letters make for  _ scary  _ reading. She was saying one of her cousins may have been drafted for some kind of Wehrmacht labor battalion - the army marched him off one day and they haven’t heard from him since.”

It was a sobering thought. “Might be in Russia,” Joan allowed. “It’s a big front.”

“Might be.” There seemed little else to say. There were too many variables, too many possibilities to worry about. Little cogs, big machine. All they could worry about was the guys and gals next to them. “And here was me thinking on that train a year ago the two of us would probably fail out and learn how to pack parachutes,” Marjorie mused with a smile, looking around at the sleeping soldiers, here and there a bright blue paratrooper badge flashing in the dim half-light of the darkened car.

“We are a long way from Fort Des Moines,” Joan agreed, glancing out into the night.

“We are indeed.” Marjorie smiled at her friend, nudging her with her knee. “But there’s no one I’d rather be far away with.” Joan’s smile was wholly grateful, and she returned the nudge with affection, sitting for a while in silence while the train swayed forward into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fort Bragg has been a permanant Army post since 1922, and is one of the largest military installations in the world, (as of the the time of this writing) home to nearly 57,000 people. During the World War II, at times its population could be as high as 159,000 people. It covers 251 square miles of land and serves as the home to the Army's XVIII Airborne Corps, as well as the Ranger school. 
> 
> Rosalind Russell (1907-1976) was a noted actress and comedienne. While she could be screamingly funny, and often played 'the lady' she also routinely played professional women like judges or journalists, and her roles were never sexualized, something she said contributed to her long career in film. Her performance (as the aforementioned journalist and career girl) in His Girl Friday alongside Cary Grant is one of the inspirations for the Lew/Joan banter.
> 
> In the show, eagle-eyed viewers will notice that the letter Dick is writing in the 'Going my way?' sequence is addressed to DeEtta, a freind of Dick's from Lancaster. While I don't get the impression this was a romantic relationship of any kind, I leaned on Mrs. Winters' a little to move it in that direction.
> 
> The 503rd Parachute Infantry Regiment was an independent Airborne Regiment that served in the Pacific, noteably during the Battles of Noemfoor, Mindoro, and the liberation of Correigedor, where it earned its nickname "The Rock Regiment."
> 
> Someone on Tumblr observed several weeks ago that you can tell that Band of Brothers and The Pacific are made at two different points in HBO decision-making - BoB has much more smoking, and The Pacific has much more sex, something that surprised me the first time I watched the series. In BoB the show tends to give any indication these men were sexual creatures an extremely wide berth, which anyone who's read their memoirs could tell you ...isn't true. This story about Joan and John is my nod to that.
> 
> I haven't talked about it much, but Ruth Shapiro's parents are first generation immigrants to the United States- they're Jews from Poland. Some of the stage business for Ruth is borrowed from another Jewish woman in the armed forces in the 1940s - 2nd Lieutenant Frances Slanger, who in October of 1944 would become the first nurse in the ETO to die due to enemy fire. A letter Slanger wrote to Stars and Stripes shortly before death (and which Slanger never got to see published) also brought her (sadly posthumous) fame. You can read it online on her Wikipedia page.


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The invasion is starting - the invasion of England, that is.

Everyone had an opinion about the purpose of the building works in progress.

"Prisoners of War," remarked the butcher, making a note of the outlines of the new Nissen huts slowly taking shape to the south of town, the perimeter of some large enclosure marked in white tape. "All those wops we captured in Sicily."

"Training camp for spies and saboteurs," said Mrs. Bratt, the village switchboard operator and resident gossip, over tea with some of her friends from the Women's Institute. "It's got to be out in the country, see, so when they start practicing for demolitions no one knows."

"If it was for spies and saboteurs, Millie, do you think they'd want you spreading it about that it was here in Aldbourne?" her neighbor Mrs. Barnes remarked tartly.

"Americans," declared Archie Nicolson, over his evening pint down at the Bell. He was the head gardener over at 'the big house', and there had been rumblings coming and going from the place for quite a while. "No question. Sir Ernest had an officer over last week about the house. 'pparently they're going to use it as a command post. Paratroops, I think he said. Going to use the airfield they've put in in over at Membury."

"What, like the Red Devils?" A nod. Well, that was all right. Mr. Sykes, over near Chilton-Foliat, had a nephew in the Paras. Brave bastards, the whole lot of them, jumping out of them airplanes straight into battle. Didn't quite seem like honest soldiering, but then, Hitler was dropping bombs on London and killing kids, and that wasn't honest soldiering neither.

Archie nodded, serene in his absolute knowledge of the situation, calmly sipping his pale, and the men in the pub all nodded, digesting this new bit of information the same way they might discuss the weather, or the latest developments in Italy.

Americans. 

A whole regiment.

It would be a change, that was for certain. 

* * *

Captain Frobisher listened for the door before going downstairs. 

He'd lingered a little longer over his book, knowing that his wife had a guest. He'd watched the man come up the drive and ring the bell - what strange colors these new American uniforms had! - and listened for the maid to answer the door. Abby had said over breakfast that he'd be coming, at eleven, to speak with her, and he'd decided to make himself scarce around that time. It wasn't that he was afraid of currently serving officers - more than he was a little ashamed of what his wife would do upon introducing him.  _ My husband, Captain Frobisher. Served with the Wiltshires at Albert and Arras, and Third Ypres. _

She always managed to make it sound like he'd been mentioned in dispatches, which wasn't even remotely true. All he'd done was survive the damn thing- and he daily thanked God that he had. Besides, he hardly thought the Americans went in for teaching the last war, as they’d only been in it eight months. This man had probably never heard of Albert, unless he had a cousin who had been there or some such thing. Not that it mattered - it had all been a long time ago, and he hardly talked about such things, even with his own sons.

"Productive meeting?" he asked, coming down just after he could hear the door snapping shut behind their visitor. Abby was in the hall, looking pleased with herself.

“Very,” she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek. “I am now the best-informed woman in town - apart from Lady Caroline, I suppose - or Mrs. Barnes at the exchange.”

She filled him in while Grace laid lunch: a whole regiment, divided out between Ramsbury, Aldbourne, Membury and points in between, to be arriving next week by motor transport. The officers would be staying at Littlecote, ‘until everything’s been arranged,’ to use Abby’s phrase. “He was very careful to say that it is an experimental unit,” she added, settling her napkin into her lap as Grace went back for the soup. “It is - what was the phrase he used - co-educational. Men and women.” She gave a little sniff. “I think he expected me to be disturbed - I rather think  _ he _ was.”

“They've got anti-aircraft units in London like that,” the Captain said with a shrug. 

“Exactly. Old hat for us, rather new for them, I think. They’ll be using Littlecote House for some of the officers, but they're expecting to secure private housing for the rest, at appropriate rates. He was given my name by Sir Ernest, to see if I might ...rally our members to the cause. Only officers, of course, the enlisted will be about town in a few spots, those huts they're building - and the stable. I told him he could depend upon me for it, and it's already been added to this week's agenda.”

“Do you think you'll get much response? After asking for people to take evacuees, and such? Morgans are already full up, with their WLA girls.”

She waved him off. “There's plenty of empty rooms about - and plenty of people who'd be grateful for the income. And I've been told there may be extra ration coupons - or a draw from Army stores. That will pique some interest, don’t you think?”

Captain Frobisher nodded, taking all of this in. Of course Abby had given this some thought, but he knew his wife, and he knew that she rather had a tendency to jump in sometimes without having sufficiently plumbed the pool. He was thinking of some of the householders in the village who had spare room, older families with grown children, or sons or daughters in the services, and was having a hard time picturing, say, the Mrs. Winslows or Mr. Davitts of the world taking in two or three large, boisterous American types of the kind they were getting used to seeing on screen, rough and tumble cowboys and smooth talkers. And of course there were families like the Barneses, who had spare room only because they’d recently lost a son. Would Abby lean on them to take someone in? They already had an evacuee staying with them - was it right to ask for more?

“Will they get a say, in who they get?” he asked, trying to sound merely curious, and not concerned. “Personalities and such.” 

“I'm not sure. He did say special care was to be taken with the women. One got the sense the Army doesn't much trust them not to...get into the usual sorts of trouble. He was most insistent about moral obligations - though I noticed he made no such indications for the men.”

Oliver bristled a little at that - everyone had been a bit wild, the last go-round, sowing their wild oats and such. And it wasn’t hard to be a little suspicious when it seemed like every Mary, Anne and Betty was joining up only because the uniform was pretty, or they were entitled to free travel, or they were hoping to get a bit closer to a ring and a marriage license. Why shouldn’t they worry? 

But Abby would have her causes, and the equal rights of women were one of them. “Bit of a change for them, I should think,” he said, trying to be impartial, for her sake.

“Well, I put paid to it and told him we should be the first to volunteer for such a woman.” Abby looked at her husband, now staring at her with that slightly incredulous look men use when they wonder if they’ve really heard their wives properly, and frowned at him. “Oh, cheer up, Olivier, I’m sure they'll be perfectly lovely. It’ll be nice, to have young people about the house again. We’ll have the boys over to tea or something.”

_ I very much doubt any of these young people have joined the paratroops and crossed an ocean to host tea parties, Abby,  _ Olivier thought to himself.  _ It’s not a shooting weekend, it’s a war.  _

But it didn’t matter- his wife had made her mind, and she would not be moved, and that was all that was going to be said on the subject. Twenty five years of marriage had cemented in his mind the idea that there were some battles that were simply not worth fighting, and this was merely one of them. The Americans would come - one of them would be billeted here. There was a possibility it would be a woman. 

He took a breath, accepted these as facts, and tucked into his lunch.

\--

There were no cheering crowds in England.

The lights were out all over London, giving the once-great city an almost deserted look, as though the Empire, on its way out, had simply hit the lights and closed the door. Far away they could see searchlight beams punching out of the darkness, but that was all. There was an eerie quiet, far quieter than any city any of them had claimed as home, the citizens collectively holding in their breath waiting for the wolf to pass by the door. "Light and Noise discipline," the order came down, and they disembarked in one great, heaving, silent mass, stumbling down gangplanks with their hands full of gear, happy to finally be rid of the hated life-vests. No one shouted. Few spoke.

They'd left New York as heroes. In England they weren't heroes yet. 

In the cold dark of the evening, the only people who met the boat were the port officials, industrious, efficient men in khaki who herded them off the ship and into a great, cold warehouse of a space, for distribution onto a string of cold, idling trucks, spilling them out into cold, dark streets and on their way towards a cold, distant destination known only to the officers.

The sun was just starting to come up over the trees as the milkman was nearly run off the road by the convoy coming into Aldbourne, little expecting the long, long line of olive drab trucks on his way to do his rounds.  _ Where's all that petrol coming from, eh?  _ he wondered to himself, watching his own gage and hoping he wouldn't be too late to the rest of his route.

The newsboy on his bicycle saw them, trundling down the narrow country lanes, and pulled aside to watch the heavy trucks drive past, GMC picked out in white along the front grill. He wondered what the markings and numbers along the bumpers meant, 101 ABN 506 PIR HQ3, trying to make some sense of a pattern as they all passed by, truck after truck after truck and then a couple of jeeps, filled with tired looking officers. One of them touched his cap to the boy and smiled back, the blue of his cap badge a flash in the early morning light.  _ I wonder what that is, then.  _ What unit had a cap like that? His father had been talking about the Paras, but they wore maroon berets.

"What on earth is that noise?" Abigail Frobisher wanted to know, turning over in bed and squinting at the window, where her husband was standing, watching someone go by down the road to Ramsbury and Chilton Foliat and Littlecote.

Her husband let the curtain drop, shuffling downstairs for a pot of tea. "Looks like the invasion's started."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this truly is a filler chapter, and you all deserve better after waiting two weeks for it, but I really felt like I needed to get some scene changes and a few new characters in there. 
> 
> When the 506th arrives in Aldbourne in September of 1943, the invasion of Mainland Italy (Operations Salerno, Baytown and Slapstick) have just gotten underway under the direction of General Sir Harold Alexander's 15th Army Group. Following operations in Sicily, it's fair to say there might have been some Italian prisoners of war being shipped back to England; some were actually used as agricultural laborers.
> 
> The Parachute Regiment, also known as the Paras, was formed in the early 1940s from a group of Commandos, who were redesignated and retrained on an Airbourne model. Much like their American counterparts, they were all volunteers. At its height, it counted 17 battalions, and took part in six major assaults during World War II. (We, of course, meet them in the show during the Pegasus Bridge episode.) One of their special symbols is the maroon beret, a style of hat later adopted by other special forces regiments.
> 
> The battles Captain Frobisher mentions took place in 1916, 1917, and 1918 - Third Ypres is also called Passchendaele. (To put it mildly - he was in it.) To be 'mentioned in dispatches' is to do something of special significance that's mentioned in the official report of an action; you're entitled to wear a decoration if this happens.
> 
> Littlecote House is a stately home down the road from Aldbourne; it was owned by Sir Ernest Willis, a member of the Willis tobacco family, and it was used as Colonel Sink's command post. Today it is a luxury hotel.
> 
> And, finally, a note- the precise nature of the West Country/Wiltshire accent is still evading me. I can hear bits of it in my head, but I can't get it down on paper. (It's not one that comes well stocked in period dramas.) I apologize in advance that the locals will not read quite correct to type.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reactions to the invasion are mixed. On the downside, the pub's a little bit busier on a Friday - but from where some of the locals are sitting, having an entire regiment of men in town is the best thing to happen all year.

Reactions to the Invasion were mixed.

The Bell, suffering under four years of accumulating slow sales now that beer was nearly a shilling a pint, was ecstatic for the business after it had been designated the American enlisteds’ pub, though the same joy was not shared by their regulars, who now had to share both the darts board  _ and _ the radio with the newcomers.

Local housewives out in front gardens hanging out washing reported receiving repeated inquiries for laundry service, which nearly all declined (except Mrs. Lamb, a woman of sound buisness sense, who cleaned out the shed in her back garden, bought several wash coppers, and hung out a sign advertising her services at very reasonable rates.)

But the real winners, it could be argued, were the Land Girls out at Morgan's farm, who were nothing short of rapturous that their pool for dates had just widened by a considerable margin.

"And one of them saw I was looking at him and winked! Great long lashes - and tall..." 

"Yes, you've been saying that, Celia," Constance said with an abbreviated smile. Celia had been the first to get a close-up look at the Americans, and it was coming out that they were, indeed, just as good looking as the movies had promised they would be.

"If I didn't know her better, girls, I'd say Celia has a thing for tall men," Jessie said with a grin.

"What, like she's been talking about it all day?" Constance laughed. "I hadn't noticed."

"You all laugh," Celia said from the top of the haycart, staring down at them all from her perch, "But when I'm living in New York in a big swank house as Mrs. American So-and-So, we'll see who's making fun of whom."

"You don't know the first thing about any of them, Celia. For all you know he might be married," Thea Gibson counseled from her side of the haymow.

"Or dating one of them others," Jessie put in. "They've got a few women in. One of their officers, for starters."

"God, did you get a look at her?" Celia laughed. "Looked like she wouldn't know a good time if it bit her on the bum."

"I thought she was quite nice looking - but I expect you'd have to be a bit prim to be in charge of that lot," Constance said fairly. "There was a ruckus at the Bell on Friday when they were in, but they smartened up well enough when she told 'em to."

"And what were you doing at the Bell on Friday, Constance Blake?" Jessie asked with mischievous interest, watching the shy vicar's daughter blush a little. Jessie was from Poplar, in London, and there wasn’t much that surprised her any more, but Constance’s childhood in a small village in Hampshire had been very, very different.

"Well, I didn't - Mrs. Bratt was telling me on the phone while I was waiting for my call to Sydney to go through."

"That woman!" Celia rolled her eyes. “I never knew anyone else with such a pronounced interest in everyone else's business! You just know she listens to everyone's calls."

"Careless talk costs love lives?" Jessie put in with a grin. "Oh, wotcher, everyone."

She was looking back towards the farmhouse, where another woman was crossing the field, blonde hair tight under a kerchief, waxed canvas coat flapping in the wind, a rather grubby pointer hard at her heels, sniffing the ground for birds. "How’re we getting on, girls?"

"Fine, Mrs. Morgan," they chorused. It might have been Giles Morgan’s name on the deeds and titles, but there was no denying that Harriet Morgan was a force to be reckoned with around the farm. None of them would argue she was a hard taskmaster, but no one would deny that she did her fair share of the work - and then some. None of them had known farming when all of this had started, but she’d grown up with it, woman and girl, and she could keep going when the rest of them were absolutely knackered by the work. 

“You’ve made good progress,” she said, inspecting the stacks they were working to get up into the cart. “I think you can have this done by the end of the day, if you buckle in.”

But buckling in looked like it would have to wait - for at the edge of the field was that distraction of all distractions - the Americans, going by in their white shirts, singing as they came, the song that all the little boys in town were trying madly to learn,  _ hiedy-deidy, Christ almighty, who the hell are we, zim-zam, god-damn, we’re Airborne Infantry.  _

Distracting to little boys and young women both - the Land Girls all looked up from their work to watch the soldiers go by, some of the men whistling from their formation before someone started the verse of another song. One of the officers, running on the edge of the group, doubled time to catch up to the others, spoke quickly, and then broke away from the pack to vault the wall and jog through the lower field. “Mrs. Morgan!”

The farmer’s wife waved, going out to meet the runner before they got too far. “Lieutenant, you’ll spoil your shoes, it’s quite muddy there.”

The officer - a  _ she,  _ they were surprised to see, as the neatly coiffed hair became more apparent, made a slight turn, correcting around the shallow part of the field, “Nothing they haven’t seen,” the young woman said, ruddy-cheeked and smiling, absolutely in her element. 

Seeing her in person, it looked as though Celia’s assessment had perhaps been a bit unfair - the female lieutenant was, indeed, capable of smiling, and from the looks of things, her idea of a good time involved a long run over hard ground. She was wearing the same boots the Americans wore everywhere, the smooth, dark brown leather that had more than one schoolboy in town working his own scuffed toes into a shine. “Listen, I wanted to apologize again about those men in your orchard the other day. I know the Colonel didn’t think too much of it, but they've been reprimanded, and it shouldn’t happen again. And if you’d like restitution of some kind, I’m happy to pay for the fruit they stole.” She sounded like she, too, had come off a movie set, her voice putting her in the same realm as Barbara Stanwyck and Gene Tierney, a change from the voices of her soldiers, who Celia had described as ‘a couple of regular gangsters.’

“Be happier if they came and did the rest of the orchard,” Mrs. Morgan said with a wry smile, folding her arms. “We’re hard up with the hay and the potatoes to finish and Abby Frobisher’s on about making jam. Apple and plum - as if we didn’t get enough of it last time.”

“Well, now, that’s an idea.” The Lieutenant was thinking this through with a receptive smile. “I’ll, ah... I’ll see what I can do. Some of them are due passes soon; I... don’t think it would be a hard sell.” She glanced over Mrs. Morgan’s shoulder for a moment and the older woman nodded, knowing exactly what she was referring to. Where there are girls to be had...“Be good for them to meet the locals a little. Let me know some dates and I’ll put it around.”

“Best get going, or you’ll miss your train.” Mrs. Morgan pointed over the field, where the company had begun to move again. The American nodded, and took off across the field again, legs pumping hard and fast, taking the wall again with an easy vault and setting off down the road.

“She seems nice.” It was just like Celia to try and start something, and the rest of the girls tried to contain their laughter, which Mrs. Morgan noticed at once. She looked around with a knowledgeable smile like she didn’t know who they’d been talking about.

“What, Lieutenant Warren? She is, rather. I met her when I went over to Littlecote to complain about the orchard being ransacked. Very polite young woman - I’m surprised she remembered where I lived. We were chatting about family homes - apparently her grandfather was a state governor.”

Celia made a face. “And she joined the army? She must be insane.”

“Or a genius,” Jessie remarked with a grin. “Haven’t you just been saying how attractive all their officers are?”

Celia frowned, and went back to trampling the hay into the cart with a vengeance, while Mrs. Morgan smiled and set back off for the house.

“You might want to watch what you say about her, Celia Mansell,” Thea cautioned. “She’s the one who’s going to get you an apple orchard full of handsome Americans to pick.”

* * *

They never thought they’d say it, but after ten days at sea, it was good to be running again. After the muggy mornings at Mackall and the spruce-lined paths of Camp Sturgis, in New York, the open country lanes around Aldbourne were a big change - albeit a welcome one, motorists on the wrong side of the road aside. It was fall in England, and the temperature was a good ten degrees cooler than it had been at home - fine weather for an afternoon of PT. 

Especially, of course, if the PT course took them past the field with four of the prettiest English girls they’d seen so far this trip. (“That was her- the girl on the cart!” “Like to get her into a haystack.” “Tab!” “What? Just saying.”)  _ Sounds like we’re going to get a lecture on fraternization very soon,  _ Marjorie thought to herself, mentally preparing her notes for the resulting backlash about how no such incrimination was being visited on the girls. 

“Good work, everyone,” Winters said, as the company fell into formation on the gravel path behind Littlecote House. “I think we’ve finally lost our sealegs. Mess at eighteen hundred hours. Sergeants, dismiss the company. ”

The sergeants didn’t have to tell them twice - most of them made a direct line for the tents that were serving as their temporary quarters, a brave few sprinting in the direction of the river running behind the house, doubtless to test the information they’d been given about the depth and temperature of the water. 

Marjorie held back from the crowd, hoping to get in a quick word with Joan. Since they’d arrived in England the officers had been busy as bees, and there hadn’t been much time to chat. Joan had taken a detour on their run today to talk to someone, and Marjorie was wondering if it was the woman who’d come to complain the other day about soldiers stealing food. 

Easy Company’s lone female lieutenant was lingering on the lawn, studying the facade of the great house behind them and waiting for...someone or something, Marjorie couldn’t quite see who - but as she came up behind her, Marjorie could see where her gaze fell - on Winters and Sobel, having a conversation about something that Sobel held in prime consideration and Winters, to judge the set of his jaw, considered chickenshit. Sobel you could leave, but Dick Winters was something to look at, standing in his PT shorts with his ruddy red hair catching the late afternoon sun. The sergeant allowed herself a smile.  _ Well, that’s not new news. At least she’s consistent.  _ “You, ah, catching your breath or admiring the view there, lieutenant?” she asked quietly, making Joan jump a little.

“That’s not funny, Marj.” She dropped her gaze and turned away, pointedly focusing on her friend. “Did you want something?”

“Just to give you permission,” Marjorie said with a smile, dropping her voice so there wasn’t the slightest fear anyone else would hear. “You're allowed to say he's cute. I'll even say it for you. You can imagine  _ Eileen _ saying it if it will make it easier to hear. Lieutenant Richard Winters is very attractive, and _ you should ask him on a date _ ."

She rolled her eyes. "We're here to fight a war, Marj," she said, starting their walk back to the estate stableblock where the NCOs were temporarily quartered.

"No one told the rest of the company they had to become a bunch of monks," Marjorie shot back. "I just heard a lot of plans being laid for getting laid, and I know for a fact that at least two members of this company,  _ together _ , are already in that boat. Ask him to...go for a bicycle ride with you or something...pick blackberries. A romp in the hay."

Joan snorted at that last one. “I can't.”

"That excuse worked when he was your superior officer, Joanie, but now you're both wearing a bar," Marjorie pointed out. "And don't tell me you have an insane husband locked in the attic of your uncle's house, because I read that one on the boat."

“No, it just…” Joan paused to study her hands, looking around to make sure they didn’t have an audience. “I'm just thinking about what Lieutenant Sutton told us, is all. About relationships breaking the company up. I don't want to do that. We're on thin ice as it is where leadership’s concerned. And I don't want to give anyone else ideas.”

Marjorie’s eyes narrowed, wondering who among the officers would be stupid enough to try something. She would have thought the business with the parade review would have taught them all some caution, but men, it could be said, were sometimes very dumb. “Sobel again?”

“No,” Joan replied gratefully, “He's been fine, but if I...if I go out with Dick, and it doesn't work out...that door's open. And I've worked so hard to keep it shut.”

Marjorie had to snort. “What, in between you flirting with Nixon like the house is on fire?” That was a development she had not been expecting, although as she sat with it long enough, it made some sense - Nixon’s family was one of those old names that came from money and obligation and privilege. She hadn’t realized just how much money until she’d seen over Christmas that the fertilizer on her uncle’s farm came from Nixon, New Jersey. 

“That's different.”

“Is it?”

“That's just Nixon - he jokes. He's married, and at the end of the day, he knows it's not going anywhere. No,” she said, decidedly, “Lewis Nixon is useful. If everyone else thinks he’s the main thing going, no one’s going to make a play. And it’s...nice to feel wanted in a way that’s not...dirty and over a desk.” 

Marjorie blanched. “Did someone say that?” (She could think of a few contenders.)

“It doesn’t matter if they did or they didn’t,” Joan said, circling back to the matter at hand, which told Marjorie that someone had, and she just didn’t want to say who. “The fact is that some people still don’t think I deserve to be here doing what I’m doing, and they’re going to keep making snide remarks until one of them gets to me, and I’m just not going to let that happen. So - Saint Joan the Ice Queen it is.”

“Have you told someone? Harry? Dick? You know they’d go to bat for you, Joanie - hell, even Nixon would, and he’s fundamentally lazy. You have friends, Joan. You can ask us for things.” She snorted. “I’m pretty certain Bill would happily  _ decapitate _ someone for you, if you asked.”

It was a cheap joke, but it at least did the job of making her smile. “Thanks. But... we’re not there quite yet.”

Another thought, more terrible than the first, had just occurred to Marjorie, and she wondered if she should even utter it aloud. “Joan...it’s not one of  _ them _ , is it?” 

The response was immediate. “God, no! Harry would never, and...Dick's not like that." Her eyes were distant, wistful. “He plays for keeps, or not at all.”

Marjorie’s calm returned, and she allowed herself a relieved smile. It didn’t make it much better, but it helped - and there was something in Joan’s smile that was reminding her where they’d started this conversation - the topic of Dick Winters being dateable. _And that’s what you like about him, isn’t it, Joanie?_ Marjorie thought to herself with a smile. _That he plays for keeps, as you put it._ _Or is it that he doesn't play - or that the game you two start wouldn’t be easy to win? Because I think it’s all three, if we’re being honest here. I don’t think you ever liked anything that could be called ‘easy’ until you were in this company._

They were so similar, Dick and Joan, when someone stepped back to look at them - determined to fight, determined to win. Joan was, perhaps, louder and brighter and bolder on occasion, but that was the part she played, the American Amazon the papers all expected her to be. And anyone who watched her with the other officers could see that any time anyone told a joke, Dick looked at Joan to see if she was laughing. He smiled through all of her banter with Nixon, watched with polite interest in her antics with Welsh. He played his cards pretty close, but Marjorie was forming an opinion that Dick Winters had a growing interest in Joan, too, even if he didn’t know it yet himself. 

She’d been thinking about Allen, about the moment she’d first told herself she wanted that forever, at one of his hockey games when he’d scored the winning goal and his first glance, before his teammates, before his coach, was directly for her, his eyes bright with delight. _ I want all of your victories, _ she’d remembered thinking, and that’s when she knew she was done for. "Regret won't take care of you in your old age, Joanie."

Joan sighed. “Marj, I hear you, I do, and if it were senior year of college and the only thing on the horizon were the homecoming football game, I'd go for it in a heartbeat. But we're not. If the...if the quarterback's off his game 'cause his girlfriend dumped him, we don't just lose a football game here.”

“So don't dump him.” She was making this more complicated than it needed to be.

“You know what I meant!” Joan looked at the ground, her lips pursed. “I ...get the sense he didn't date a lot in college - that he was... too busy.”

Marjorie rolled her eyes.  _ Oh, the two of you. You will both be ‘too busy’ until Judgement Day.  _ “One of those  _ responsible _ types, hmmm?” she said with a grin. “We don't know any of them,  _ Saint Joan _ .” She got a shove for her efforts, the kind that says, without saying, that she was mostly right. “I think you need to give the quarterback a little more credit. And maybe stop flirting with his - Lord, what  _ is  _ Nixon in this metaphor? As far as I’m concerned he sprang from the officers’ club fully formed and holding a whiskey.”

“Fraternity brother from the business school.”

She immediately knew the type. “Ugh, Joan. And you  _ flirt  _ with him. Our sorority sisters are going to disown us. Stick with the football captain, he’s cuter - he IS,” she added for emphasis. 

“What would Allen say?”

“Not to argue with me,” Marjorie said with finality. “He would know that I am right.”  _ He’d have been listening to me argue about it for months already. He already HAS been listening to me argue about it for months already.  _ “Do men keep secrets like this?” she’d asked, in a letter home. “Do you all huddle in locker rooms agonizing about whether or not to ask out the cute girl in math class? I’m asking for a friend.”

Joan sighed. “I will take it under advisement,” she said.

“Thank you,” Marjorie said with a grateful smile and an air of aggrieved finality. “That is all I ask. And remember what I said about Bill. Or Smokey. Or Lip, frankly.”

“Lip? Really? ”

Marjorie nodded. “He calls ‘em like he sees ‘em, and he’s been on our side since we first joined Easy. I would not move that man to anger, Joan, I really wouldn’t. It would be a terrible thing to behold.” 

_ It’s always the quiet ones that surprise you, isn’t it? And, as I’m thinking about it, _ she thought to herself,  _ I’m not sure I’d like to be the one who tells Dick Winters someone propositioned you. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pre-war prices (and wartime taxes) meant that the cost of a pint of beer nearly doubled during the war years, something that the working classes of Britain felt deeply. (Beer taxes, incidentally, usually went to underwrite the cost of the war.) I wrote a post on my tumblr comparing the buying power of the average American serviceman in the period to the cost of a pint - and 12 pence, or a shilling, works out to about 20 cents, in an era where a paratrooper would be bringing home the equivalent of $20 a week. It's not terribly expensive as far as beer goes - but American servicemen are also some of the highest paid soldiers in the 1940s.
> 
> Under the terms of the National Service Act of 1941, the provisions of the 1939 act were extended to include the conscription of single women age 20 to 30. Women could chose to join a military service, farming, or industry, and the Women's Land Army, or WLA, was one of the agricultural services available. As an island nation, Britain had become keenly aware during the last war of the overseas sources of much of its food supplies, and encouraged domestic agriculture to help free shipping tonnage for war materiel. At its peak in 1943, over 80,000 land girls were doing their bit on small farms across Britain. There's a 2009 TV series called Land Girls, which follows one such group.
> 
> The Women's Institutes, or WI, began life as the Women's Rural Institutes, a movement in the 1880s in Canada to encourage women to meet each other, learn new skills, and advocate for their communities. Like the women's clubs that Joan's been giving all those lectures to back in the states, the WI is a social organization, and they're perhaps best known in the period for 'Jam and Jerusalem', the practice of canning and preserving locally grown fruit, and the singing of the William Blake hymn at the beginning of their meetings. Julie Summers has an excellent book on the group's wartime activities called The Jambusters, which the 2016 TV series "Home Fires" is based in part on.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving in has proceeded on schedule, and the occupation force is settling in to their temporary accommodations nicely.

Aldbourne and its surrounding villages were full of cottages and farmhouses, barns and stables, but Littlecote was a House with a capital H.

It belonged, the army gossip went, to some sort of tobacco company executive with a very posh name and more money and property than he knew what to do with, and the Army was renting it for the duration, or something similar. As stately homes went, it was very nice - built in the 14th century, remodeled around the time Victoria had taken the throne, one of the oldest private chapels in England - but for Americans used to indoor plumbing, electricity, and windows that had been installed this century, it was a very big change. On the subject of windows, someone had already broken one ("They open OUT, not up!"), a painting had been removed from the gallery after being the subject of several sniggering comments, and the house's owner, Sir Ernest, who was still out and about in the estate's Dower House, wherever that was, had already been to see the Colonel on behalf of his gardener, who had taken offense to the ruts someone's jeep had left in his otherwise pristine lawn.

It was a large establishment, but it was currently housing the entirety of Easy Company’s officers, and, to put it mildly, relations were becoming strained. (Bathrooms, for instance, were becoming a sore spot, and Sir Ernest had absolutely kiboshed the idea of building a latrine.)

No, the sooner they could all be out of the mansion, the better it would be for all, but until that time, the officers all had to find their own route to privacy - and for Joan, that was the garden.

Like any house worth the capital H, Littlecote had a garden with a capital G, a slightly formal affair with clipped boxwoods and a rose border. It also had a gardener, whom Joan had just recently met. She'd thanked him politely for his hard work, complimented his roses, and, remembering the story about the jeep, asked if there were any spots he'd rather she not go. He seemed grateful for the ask, and gave her a small tour of the remaining rosebushes before showing her several benches. “Going t’paint?” he asked with polite interest, watching her open her notebook.

“Oh, no, just sketch,” Joan assured him. “Pencil’s easier, I’ve found. Less spills.”

A polite nod. “Lady Caroline would come out here and paint,” he said. “Flowers, mostly. It’s a nice spot - though my favorite’s under the old willows along the Kennet. Fishing’s better, too.” They shared a private smile, and he went on with his work, leaving her in the shade of the tree, the boxwoods faintly fragrant in the fall air. That had been several hours ago. The light had shifted since they’d spoken, and several trucks had driven past - but apart from that, she’d had the place all to herself - a very welcome change.

"That's really good." It was Dick Winters, surveying her work politely over her shoulder. Evidently he'd been taking a turn around the garden as well. He could be incredibly quiet, when he wanted to be, and one of his soft, off-handed comments had made her jump more than once. It wasn’t malicious, or at least, she didn’t think it was - just Winters being Winters. 

It had been easy enough to set aside her crush at boot camp - he was her superior officer, and she was there to learn how to do a job, and there just wasn't any time for that sort of thing when you were trying to get the world to take you seriously, now, was there? So he was cute. Plenty of men were cute. Cute didn’t win wars for anyone. 

But now the ground between them was a little firmer - she had her commission, and he knew who she was, and she, in turn, had gotten a little bit of a chance to learn more about him.

Learning more hadn't helped, because it turned out that, on further acquaintance, the man was...exactly as she’d imagined him from a distance. Deliberate with his words, careful in his actions and, at the end of the day, entirely a gentleman; very different from Lewis, who lived life at a mile a minute, never cared who he offended, and had a dirty joke for every occasion. 

And there was something about Dick’s silences that Joan longed to fill - which was odd, because she hated chatter for the sake of chatter, and she was fairly certain that, given his temperament, he did, too. 

Marjorie could joke all she liked about asking him out on a date, but from where she was sitting, it seemed more impossible than ever. She had no idea how he felt about her, and she didn’t have the time to find out. They had responsibilities and obligations, to the company and the men. And even if by some miracle he did feel the same, he didn’t need the distractions any more than she did. So for now they would be friends, at least, or something like it. Coworkers. Colleagues.

Joan looked at the pad in front of her, where a passable version of the north face of the house was starting to take shape, and felt a little foolish. "What, this? Thanks. I get along okay with gardens and buildings, but I never quite got the hang of people." There it was - the chatter again. She bit her lip and tried to find something to do with her hands.

He nodded in his usual quiet way, his face, as ever, difficult to read. "Sink said he needs you in his office," he offered, gesturing with a nod of his head back to the house. "I was passing by and he sent me out to get you."

Joan looked quickly up at the house, wondering which of the windows was now Colonel Sink’s. "Did you see who it was?"

He shrugged. "An older woman - kind of well dressed?"

Joan sighed, relieved it didn’t sound like anyone she knew (unless her mother had hopped a Transatlantic steamer, which she very much doubted.) She quickly brushed off her trousers and followed Dick inside. 

It was a shame it was such a lovely old house - it was going to take quite a beating before they were all done here. She could already see several nicks in the wood paneling, and a ragged tread was beginning to take root in one of the carpets.

The upstairs library had the benefit of plenty of space for the trappings of an office, which was why it had been given over to Colonel Sink, and the movement of a desk and several filing cabinets into the space had completed the look of a room from which to run a war. There was something...stabilizing about the effect of walking through the door to see the Colonel enthroned behind his heavy desk while an aide held papers for him to sign. 

It was something else entirely, however, to come in having been _ summoned _ , and find, in one of the chairs in front of said desk, a woman in her early fifties in a well-tailored coat and one extremely fashionable hat. 

Colonel Sink looked up as Joan entered, standing to accept her salute, which she delivered very mindfully, wondering who on earth this woman could possibly be. “Lieutenant Warren, this is Mrs. Abigail Frobisher, the President of the local Women's Institute. Mrs. Frobisher, this here is Lieutenant Joan Warren, one of our junior officers here with the Five-oh-Six.”

So  _ this  _ was the woman who had the ideas about making jam. Joan offered a hand to shake.

"Absolutely delighted to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant." No sooner were the words out of her mouth then Joan could place exactly who she was - a type well known in Washington society, one of those stately women of a certain class who can’t be seen in public without a hat, never forget their gloves, and wouldn't dream of calling something a dinner if it weren't at least three courses and served with silverware to match. She pronounced the rank in the English manner , _ lef-ten-ant, _ and her handshake was firm but friendly, her entire presence giving off the energy of a woman who knows precisely what she wants and how she's going to get it - which was doubtless how she'd ended up in Sink's office without an invitation.

"It's come to my attention that you may be in need of houseroom," she went on. "One of our members at the WI is the head gardener's wife, and she was telling us at our meeting the other day you're terribly pressed for space here at Littlecote. And of course it must be absolutely horrid for you, being packed in with all these men." 

"That's very kind of you, Mrs. Frobisher," Joan said, her smile very firmly fixed in place, trying to skirt around the huge slight, intended or no, to the Army's billeting policy, which she knew was already causing more headaches than Sink had ever wanted to deal with at Toccoa, let alone in England. "But I know the logistics are still being worked out by the billeting officer and I certainly wouldn't want to... jump the queue, as it were." She glanced at Colonel Sink, presently conducting a master-class in poker-faces from behind his desk. 

"Oh, but you wouldn't be jumping, dear." This was all perfectly clear in Mrs. Frobisher's mind - less so in Sink's. "The Women's Institute's already been tasked with submitting a list of those with available houseroom. I've simply submitted my request for you especially early."

"Mrs. Frobisher does have a phone, should we need to reach you," the Colonel said, though it didn't seem to give him any joy to say it. "And you'd be in town, where we can send a runner, if necessary."

"This is really very kind of you."

"Not at all dear. I have two sons in the services; I cannot imagine what your own dear mother must be thinking with you so far away from home."

"I come from a military family, ma'am," Joan said, summarizing what was usually a very long and very complicated story with a small fabrication. "She's quite used to it."

"Oh, splendid! My husband was in the Army; I expect you'll feel right at home. When shall we expect her luggage? Shall we say Friday?" She looked at Colonel Sink with the same sort of expectant glance one gives bellhops in the better class of hotels, Joan, watching the colonel’s nostrils flare, tried not to melt into the floor with embarrassment.

* * *

Ethel Winters would often say that idle hands were the devil's workshop, and the Army seemed to hold the same view - no sooner had Dick sat down to wait for Joan in Sink's office (she hadn't looked thrilled at the invitation and he figured she could use the company after) but Major Horton had come by asking him to go find Sobel for a meeting. Sobel, of course, defied being found, until Dick checked the one place he hadn't thought to look (the actual meeting) and found the man himself just walking in, right on time. Horton and the Easy company CO both gave him a withering look that Dick could have done without, and he circled back to Sink's office feeling like the village idiot - but both Joan and the well-dressed woman were gone.

His lecture notes were upstairs in the room he was sharing with Harry - he could take them out to the lawn and read. Joan had had the right idea with her sketchpad - and her vacated lawnchair was probably still outside. (He'd have to find the gardener and find out where those were stored so he could put it away after he was done with it.)

He took the main stairs two at time, slowing down a little on the back stairs, which were narrower and taller. The officers had been shoved into every nook and cranny of the house, including the old servants' quarters up in the attics, and it took some getting used to, moving between the public face of the house and the private spaces of the people who had kept it running. The differences were pretty marked -- wood paneling traded for painted walls, well-worn carpet runners that had already done their time downstairs to muffle footfalls. Dick didn't mind it. They were practical spaces for practical people, but he knew not everyone felt that way.

Harry was hanging out in the hallway at Joan's door, leaning into her doorframe. It had taken him a little while, but Dick had finally realized what it was about Joan’s doorway that always found Harry lounging in it - an unspoken rule the two of them had about sharing spaces. Unless a third person were present, Joan wouldn’t allow a man inside her room. Did she get that from Annie? Dick wondered. It sounded like something she would have suggested. He could hear her now, dispensing wisdom over the mess table -  _ People will talk about anything... _

"Hey, Dick, did you hear?" Harry asked, seeing him down the hallway. "She's already got her own room here and Joan's already scored a billet - the lucky duck."

"I'm not sure it's luck, Harry, it's the very British version of my mother," Joan said bitterly, pacing the room and throwing things back into her trunk. "Her name's Mrs. Frobisher, she lives in town with Captain Frobisher, she's the head of the local Women's Institute, and she's already asked Colonel Sink if I can have an afternoon off to come attend a meeting and talk to them about the Airborne.”

Harry whistled - and as Dick joined them, he moved himself to Joan’s bed, haphazardly moving a jacket out of the way. "How'd he take that?"

"Well, he said yes, but he looked about ready to throw something." She looked, again, around her room trying to figure out what to pack first, finally throwing the hat in her hands into the trunk in frustration. "Half the company still thinks I bought my way in and now there's this. And she had the nerve to tell Sink she'd expect me on Friday - like he was my...my butler or something!”

There was something amusing about someone mistaking Robert Sink for a butler, but now wasn’t the time. "You didn't ask her to come," Dick reminded gently from the doorway. "She did that on her own, and we'll tell that to anyone who asks."

Whatever she’d been expecting from him, it wasn’t that - there was surprise in her eyes, and a certain kind of tired gratefulness. “Thank you.”

“Hey, Warren!” They were creating quite the crowd in the hallway - Ron Speirs, from Dog Company, peered in, making a note of the in-progress packing and choosing not to comment. “Word around campus is that you've organized a party.”

Joan stood up, realizing she was going to get very little done with the door open, and took a pause, hands on her hips. “If you want to call it that, sure. A couple of guys thought it would be fun to steal some fruit from a farmer south of town, his wife came by to complain, and I...thought some restitution was in order. So we're picking apples."

“And how were you planning to sell that, exactly?” Harry wanted to know. “ Because from where I'm sitting it sounds like work.”

At this, Joan actually smiled - the first smile Dick had seen her give all day. “Well, as it turns out, there are half a dozen Land Girls rooming with that farmer at the moment. And his wife is a member of the WI, so I figure after the lecture I’ve just been asked to do, someone will ...invite some daughters or cousins or otherwise unattached females.” She let that knowledge rest for a moment as they all worked out what it meant - there would be girls to talk to. The smiles were slow but genuine. “There'll be some food, too, of some kind, but I figure the company should pretty well sell it. Mrs. Morgan was very excited - turns out a bunch of handsome, unattached Americans are also quite a draw."

Speirs' eyebrows rose. “You know how to throw a party, Warren.”

"I know how to give a bribe," Joan corrected. "Fruit gets picked, jam gets made, a couple of guys and gals get dates for the weekend. Everyone wins."

“Genius. You’re just single-handed going to solve Anglo-American relations this week, aren’t you?”

“It’s the only reason I joined the Army, Harry,” Joan responded sarcastically. “My mother will be so proud.” Her face, already a little stormy, fell further. “And don’t call it genius yet, I still have to get Sink’s approval on it, and at the moment my credit’s a bit low. I had to make an unexpected withdrawal this afternoon.”

“I’ll ask him.” Dick didn’t know why he’d offered - he certainly wasn’t looking for a date, or weekend plans- but there was something about the idea that he liked. It would be good for them to know the locals, and to show them that their actions had consequences, impacted people. They’d forgotten that, a little, blowing up targets that weren’t anything but empty boxes. When they invaded France - heck, while they were living here - it would be good to remind them that the fields and buildings around them weren’t stage sets -- they were peoples’ homes and farms and livelihoods. “I’ll say it was my idea - a way to meet the locals.”

The look she gave him was pure gratitude - but before she could say anything, another interruption appeared.

"Oh, is this the party?" Lewis appeared behind Dick and Speirs in the hallway. "Where are the apples?"

Joan rolled her eyes and gave a sound of barely managed disgust. "Did you tell everyone you saw about my idea?"

Lewis grinned. "I'm the intelligence officer, I share intelligence. Say, if you're making jam, are we going to see you in one of those cute, frilly aprons?"

She fixed him with a level stare. "You will get me into a kitchen when you want food poisoning, Lewis Nixon," she replied vehemently, and even if Dick wasn't its intended recipient, he could feel the heat of her gaze. "Now, can we take this somewhere else before someone thinks we're starting something?"

"Capital idea," Harry said with a very fake British accent, practically bouncing up from Joan's bed. "The Bell's bigger and this bar doesn't serve drinks. Ten minutes to meet downstairs?"

“Only if you’re buying,” Speirs replied with one of his enigmatic smiles, following Lew and Harry down the hallway to his own room. Dick followed at a distance, hands in pockets, strategizing about what he’d tell Sink, thinking about the Instructions for Servicemen and all the things it had said about being a good neighbor. He’d discuss it more with Joan at the Bell - it was her idea, and she’d have done a better job presenting it than he ever could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's very light on notes, it seems - not sure what that says about the content.
> 
> There's been a residence at the site of Littlecote House since at least the 13th century, and the present house at the site is Elizabethan in character, although it's been modified heavily since that period. When the 506th occupied the house, Sink did use the Library as his office.
> 
> Since I don't have a huge block of text at the end of this chapter, then, I guess I'll take a moment to say thank you to every single one of you who's read, commented, left kudos, or added it to your bookmarks list! (Of which there have been...four, in the last week, wow.) Feedback like yours helps keep this story going, truly.


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The apples have been picked, jam has been made, and now that the orchard has quieted, there's time for reflection. A lot has changed since the last war, and women are only the start of it.

She'd never seen herself as a mother.

It shouldn't have been surprising to her, after watching her own raise seven children who ran her ragged, but there had never been much maternal in her to start. No, Harriet Morgan had always preferred the Noah's Ark to her dolls, marching the animals two by two into the ship that was already old with use by the time she was allowed to play with it. She'd bandaged the broken legs of the giraffes and put sticking plasters on the gouges in the lion's side, and proudly told her mother after that she would be a 'vet-er-nar-knee-en.' She'd been promptly told girls didn't do that sort of work, and wouldn't she like to put a bandage on her dolly instead?

Well, it had been a different time. The war had happened and two million surplus women had to make something of themselves after, and now in Membury the GP, of all people, was a woman, and the veterinarian's assistant was too. No stone had been left unturned by  _ that  _ change. There had been less dirty looks and more understanding ones as the years rolled by and the farm flourished while she and Giles failed to produce a single sprog to run around the farmyard. "It was the war," people said, as if that word could sum up the whole gamut of the battle, the injury, the war neurosis, and the string of hospitals afterwards that had left Giles Morgan as he was.

The War. She supposed she'd have to get on calling it The Great War, or the First War, like everyone else, since they were now in the middle of the second one. As a young woman it had thrilled her, watching her friends in their khaki uniforms and peaked caps, marching off to Swindon for the train to the front, laughing and singing the old songs as they used to do in the pub, aping the stars of the music hall:

_ Don't cry-ee! don't sigh-ee! _

_ There's a silver lining in the sky-ee. _

_ Bonsoir old thing, cheerio! chin chin! _

_ Nah-poo! Toodle-oo! _

_ Good-bye-ee!  _

She could still hear the song echoing in the lane, could hear their laughter - but she knew better now, after seeing what they'd looked like when they came home. There was no great monument in the green, like they had in Swindon, no obelisk, no Cenotaph by Luytens. The Memorial Hall had done perfectly well for Aldbourne, a practical memorial for practical people. She read the names on the plaque outside every time she came for a WI meeting -  _ Aldridge, Barnes, Bonner. _ Families she recognized, at least, even if she'd grown up in Lambourne. Giles knew the names - every year on the Armistice he dug out his uniform and she put a spray of field poppies on her coat, and they went down to watch them lay a wreath and read the honor roll. 

She could hear that same laughter from the young men out in her orchard - and the young women, too.

Young women! She’d remembered thinking it would be a hot day in the Arctic when the men of her father’s generation let women go off to war, after the looks they’d given when Gwen had gone to drive an ambulance and Martha to be a nurse. (Martha had died, during that ‘flu, and Gwen, when she’d last heard anything, had been rumored to be living with some very odd characters in Bloomsbury; she’d come home on leave with her hair cut short,smoking cigarettes, and her parents had turned her out.) 

But they’d come round, eventually, to the ambulance drivers and the mechanics and the telephonists and now it was such a regular thing that the Princess Elizabeth had moved off the balcony and joined the ATS without so much as a whimper from the back benches of Whitehall. But these Americans were hardly changing tyres and typing reports. One only had to go down to the rifle range to know that every single one of them was as ready to use their guns as any of the men - and any of the men ready to take their orders. (She knew that several of her girls had gone to see, for secret and strategic purposes unrelated to their fellow females.)

On the subject of orders, those giving them were still out in the farmyard, as Sergeant Gordon and Lieutenant Warren checked the lids on the last of the jam jars cooling on the trestle tables.

“I should have thought you would have packed off to the pub with the rest of them,” Harriet observed with a smile, coming down to survey the work.

“First ones in, last ones out. Didn’t want to leave anything unfinished,” Warren said with a smile, testing another lid and standing back to take stock. “Your coppers have all been scoured, the tools are washed, I think Harry’s bringing in the last of the ladders from the orchard, and these are just cooling.”

“Two hundred jars,” Gordon sounded happy to report, “Plus another four or five crates of apples packed for keeping, and only one or two minor injuries.”

“A marvel of management,” Harriet said with a smile. “Thanks, in no small part, to you two. You three,” she amended, as Lieutenant Harry Welsh came back from the barn brushing his hands on his pantlegs. Warren had explained that she’d leaned heavier on the enlisted men, since they were greater in number and more likely to be about town, but it had been good to have the two officers and a few of the NCOs. Welsh, a shorter fellow with the look of the Irish about him, had clearly come as a goodwill gesture to his friend, but Harriet got the sense that even he had enjoyed himself today, gossiping with some of the WI women and their daughters. He had one of those smiles you instinctively liked.

“Oh, we just showed up and shouted,” Warren replied with a smile at Gordon and Welsh, who only laughed. “Thank _you_ for keeping us out of trouble for the day. I think it’s safe to say that if we hadn’t been here, we’d have been getting into mischief somewhere else. Hopefully we’ve made up for what was stolen.”

“Tenfold,” Harriet said with an enthusiastic smile. “Right, I think Mrs. Frobisher and the National Committee have had enough work from you all today, and I think that deserves a little bit of a tipple.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Welsh replied enthusiastically, the three of them following her up to the farmhouse and settling into the scrubbed kitchen table while Harriet went into her still room for a bottle and some glasses.

“Sloe gin,” she pronounced, putting the unmarked bottled on the table with the glasses and wrestling for a moment with the cork before pouring a little of the rich, dark liquid out into the glasses. “I make it myself, after the first frost have bletted them a little - prick them with a blackthorn, into a jar, sugar and gin to cover, and into the still room for a few months until it’s done. And the sloes make lovely jam afterwards.”

“Boozy jam,” Welsh said with a grin, picking up his glass and giving an experimental sniff. “Sounds great to me. Well, ladies, what are we drinking to?”

Joan looked at Harriet, who considered for a moment. “To new neighbors - long may they remain friends.”

“New neighbors,” the three Americans chorused, tapping glasses with one another and taking their first experimental sips.

“Goodness, this is good,” Gordon said with stars in her eyes.

“And a special thanks in particular is due Lieutenant Welsh," Harriet said, raising her glass to the ruddy-haired officer, who looked confused by the honor. "For making Elaine feel welcome. I know Mrs. Barnes appreciated it, and I do, too." The older woman and fellow WI member had brought her young lodger along for the jam-making, happy to have something that would get the two of them out of the house. Elaine had made fast friends among the soldiers, some of whom, it might have been said, seemed a little homesick for their kid sisters after seeing her about.

"Happy to do it," Welsh replied, raising his glass in acknowledgement and taking another sip. "I think the 506 may have accidentally picked up a mascot, honestly. She's a sweet kid. Hard to believe she's only twelve."

"I don't think I met Elaine," Sergeant Gordon said, squinting as if she were searching her mind for a memory.

"You might not have, she was out in the orchard most of the day. She's an evacuee, she's staying with the Barneses. Two years now - or is it three?"

Warren shook her head and sighed. "I know I boarded at school, but three years is still a long time to be away from home."

"We're running on two," Gordon reminded her friend.

"But we're not twelve years old and scared, Marj," Warren said plainly. "And we've gotten chances to go home for Christmas. From the little I heard at lunch, she's been stuck here." She looked for confirmation from Harriet, who nodded.

"Well, don't give me too much credit, I got something out of it, too," Welsh confessed. "Yours truly has managed to secure a billeting placement.” He paused for the polite applause, giving a fake little bow. “The Barneses have space for two above the store and they've already talked to Dick, so, farewell, Littlecote."

"And I understand you're finally at the Frobishers," Harriet said to Warren, who raised a glass with resignation. The farmwife tried not to laugh. From the little she’d seen of Lieutenant Warren, she was forming the image of a young woman who came from a family with a lot of outsize expectations - and a mother who probably, on occasion, sounded a lot like Abby. "Abigail may seem like a lot, but her heart's in the right place. She's just...never met a problem she couldn't organize away.” Warren nodded, clearly a type she knew well. “The Captain's a good one to have on side - he can rein her in, when occasion calls."

"She's already talking about a dance," Warren reported. "Oh, don't give me that look, Marj," she added unexpectedly as her friend wagged her eyebrows and Welsh only looked mischievous. "I don't want to be the regimental social coordinator on top of everything else."

"But you do it so well," Gordon teased, grinning as her friend rolled her eyes and finished her gin. 

“We should be going." Warren set her glass down and began fishing on the back of her chair for her coat and hat. "I'm sure Mrs. Morgan's got things she wants to do with her evening and we've got a walk back." They all nodded, draining glasses and setting them back on the tray from whence they’d come.

“Thank you again for the help,” Harriet said with a smile. “Now don’t stay out too late - and if you see any of my girls could you remind them of the same?”

“Absolutely,” Warren said with a nod, and Harriet knew she was good for it. She watched them from the door as they made their way down the lane, coats slung over shoulders and hats still tucked into belts, young and full of life, Welsh trying to start a song for which, apparently, only he knew the words. They would go far, those three. Sensible, with good heads on their shoulders. The men and women in the orchard were in good hands, Harriet felt, if all their officers were as devoted as those.

She had heard stories, from Giles, of the officers he had served with, young men scarcely out of school who were no more mindful of the lives they were responsible for than they were their dirty laundry, content to let it be someone else’s problem, solved by some invisible hand without their interference. It was making her think of another song, harder and colder than the songs they’d sung when they went off to war, making fun of the general uselessness of the officer class and how you could never find one when you needed them.  _ If you want to find the sergeants, I know where they are, I know where they are, I know where they are, If you want to find the sergeants, I know where they are - they’re in it where the work gets done. _

_ We saw them, we saw them, in it where the work gets done, we saw them, in it where the work gets done. _

* * *

At the pub, the work was definitely done, and the well-deserved party already well underway.

When they’d arrived, and had a bit of a banter with the barman about beers and running at tab, someone (it might have been Malarkey, he was usually good for things like that) had gotten into a conversation with a regular about the cost of living in wartime, and the rise in the price of a pint. “Profiteering, is what it is,” one of the oldsters said sagely, which the Americans all found inexplicably hilarious. Someone had bought him a beer, for his trouble, and that seemed to warm them to the room. 

Now everyone had settled in, and the pub's regulars were sending the singers in the group (Don, Chuck, Popeye, and Irene among them) tripping through an old-as-blazes-but-new-to-them drinking song, sung in round, about 'the pint pot, half a pint, gill pot, half a gill, quarter gill, nipperkin, and the brown bowl' while trying to remember an increasingly byzantine list of people and things. (The eventual performance promised to be interesting.)

On the quieter side of the room, George teetered back to his table with his hands full of glasses. “All right, here we go, for a couple of the toughest girls we've ever met outside of the Airborne - here you are, one for you, one for you, one for you - Cheers. May I never see another apple again in my life.”

"And a special toast," one of the Englishwomen said with a smile, raising her glass, "To Mr. George Luz, an absolute prince among jam-makers."

George brushed it off with a small theatrical bow. "Aw, too kind, too kind. My partner in crime, everyone, Miss Constance Blake, an absolute artist with a jam spoon. No one else saw this, but this woman deserves a medal - yes, she does. She actually gave the Bull what for about licking spoons."

Everyone exchanged sounds of amused disbelief, and Constance blushed a little. "Sunday school teacher," she offered with a little shrug, which got more laughs than the idea of this petite little English girl smartening up all six feet of Bull Randleman over licking a spoon.

"So, how do a couple of good looking broads like yourselves end up out here in the country forking hay?" Joe Liebgott asked, sipping his beer and pulling his stool a little closer.

“Well, the National Service said it was this or driving ambulances in the blackout and I didn't fancy staying in London after six months of air raids," Jessie offered, taking a long sip of her beer. “Had enough of bomb shelters and rubble, thanks much.”

The Americans stared. "What?"

Jessie looked around the table with slight confusion. “National Service? Anyone able bodied between twenty and thirty gets war work?” Blank stares. “Do your lot not have conscription in the States, then?”

"Not for women, no," Julie clarified, the lilt of her voice coming out stronger now that she was on her home ground. "We all volunteered - men and women both. They're not even drafting for the Nurse Corps, and they need it. Against the national character, I think.”

“Happy enough to draft men, though,” Liebgott said, looking like he just wanted to start something for the sake of starting things.

The American women all exchanged looks. "There is a mistaken notion in American politics," June said pointedly, addressing Celia, Thea, Constance and Jessie, "that women can do nothing except staff typing pools and look cute on posters. And we are out to change that."

"What else can you do with your National Service, then?" Ruth wanted to know.

"Oh, you can join any of the services - Navy, Army, Air Force,” Celia offered, safe on her perch on Tab’s knee, conveniently acquired when the table had magically ran out of chairs. (Neither she nor Tab seemed particularly put out by this arrangement.) “No combat positions, obviously, but some real front-line stuff. I've got a couple of friends who are plotters with the WAAF, monitor radio chatter and map where incoming raids are happening. Ack-ack batteries, um...another friend working on a barrage balloon crew on the Thames, that's always sounded like a lark. Ambulance, fire brigade...what am I missing here, girls, help me out.”

"Factory work," Thea offered, her Caribbean accent softening what was already a soft voice even more. "Did a bit of that myself before I joined up - wanted to get out of the City, like Jessie."

Celia nodded, still ticking off fingers. "VAD - that's Voluntary Aid Detachment - does work at hospitals. Red Cross, of course, you lot have that, um..."

“So, to sum, if you see a girl with a bit of ribbon on her tunic," Julie started with a smile, quoting the ‘Instructions for Servicemen” that had, over the last weeks, become their constant reading companion.

"- Remember she didn't get it for knitting the most socks in Ipswich!" chorused the others.

“And now we get to ask the same question," Jessie asked back. "How do a couple of "good looking broads" like yourselves volunteer to end up with this lot?" She pointed at Tab, George and Joe with sarcasm in her smile.

"Money." The word dropped out of Ruth’s mouth before anyone got a chance to say otherwise, and the whole table, men and women both, laughed. "Paratroopers get fifty dollars jump pay, on top of regular pay,” she explained. “For, you know,” she laid a hand on Joe’s shoulder and gave it a pat. “The hazards.” Leibgott tried (and failed) to look very offended at being termed hazardous, and Celia gave Tab a glance that indicated exactly what she thought about being seen in such close company with such dangerous men.

"So that means you're buying the next round too, then, is that it?" Jessie asked with a grin, prompting more laughs. “But it wasn’t ...just the money, was it?” She asked this with the air of a fellow conspirator.

A few nods, some smiles, glances exchanged, each woman, in her turn, thinking about what it was that had made her not only join the WAC but volunteer for a group she wasn’t even sure she’d be found worthy of joining. “Chance to see the world, I guess,” June started. “I was working as a waitress and it seemed like the rest of town was packing to leave, so I thought I'd better get while the getting was good.”

“Get away from my mother," Ruth admitted flatly. Many, many friendly nods on that one - a familiar sentiment for more than one girl.

“The challenge,” Julie said with a slim smile. “I’d done the ATS for a bit, and...had some things that didn’t work out here, and I wanted...something I’d never done before. And - I don’t know if this is true for you lot, but at boot camp, one of our training officers, she...well, she just liked to prove people wrong, and I...I think I picked up a little of that, too.” She looked apologetically at June and Ruth, who were both nodding in robust agreement.

“My mother laughed when I said I was going to be a Land Girl,” Celia said. “Work’s too hard, you’ll never make it. And she was right - it was hard, and I didn’t know what I was doing, but ...I made some friends, and I got through it, and here I am, blisters and all.” She sat up a little straighter and held her arms out like a variety show hostess, a thing to be admired. “And when this is over, I know I can do bloody well anything.” 

“Here, here,” Tab said, raising his glass and clicking it with hers.

“That’s the world you’re going back to, chaps, when this is over,” Jessie said sagely, looking around the table at the assembled men. “Women who can do bloody well anything. And you know it’s never going to go back.”

“Well, to women who can do anything, then, ” George said with a grin, raising his glass and clicking with Julie.

“And to the men who let us,” Julie chorused back, with smiles from Joe and Tab. 

“Right,” Jessie said, taking another sip of her beer as the radio flipped on. “Which one of you fellows is going to ask me to dance?”

“Don’t women who do anything pick their own partners?” Joe asked with a devil may-care grin. Jessie returned the grin straight back and held out her hand.

“Just for that, I’ll take you, Joe Liebgott, and with none of your cheek. Up and at ‘em, soldier, and smartish.”

He didn’t have to be told twice, and the rapidity with which he rose from his chair (and replied “Yes, ma’am” with a smirk on his lips) and let Jessie lead him out to a less crowded place on the floor was cause for more than one sideways smile. Tab and Celia made a quick follow, leaving the remaining girls to gossip amongst themselves while George continued enjoying his beer, companionable next to Julie. They were natural allies, the two radio operators, her quietness a good balance to his ever-present enthusiasm, her own drier humor a nice antidote to his occasional serious moments.

“She’s smart, our Joan. We needed this.” 

"A whole day of backbreaking manual labor? Or cuter girls to dance with? " George was obviously joking, and looked it, but Julie still gave him a shove for his trouble. 

“No, you ass - this." She gestured around the pub - to familiar faces who were drinking, and smiling, and dancing, faces that were enjoying themselves, who were at peace. "To be reminded of what we're fighting for."

"And here I thought I was fighting for the guy next to me," George put in, absolutely undeterred. He got another shove. "Aw, jeez, Jules, lay off!” He rubbed his arm on the spot where she’d now elbowed him twice. “No, you're...you're right. This is...nice.” His eyes followed hers around the room, taking in Joe and Jessie, Tab and Celia, Doc Roe and a girl whose name they’d have to pump him for information on later. Laughing, and free, tired for reasons that weren’t humping equipment, or running through fields, or obeying commands from men who wouldn’t know how to follow them if their positions were reversed, men and women who would know what peace was supposed to look like before they went to war. George sipped his beer and glanced for a moment at Julie, staring out with a smile into the dancing crowd, swaying a little bit to the music.  _ This is really nice. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The phrase 'surplus women' was indeed used to describe the generation of women who, after the loss of so young men, found themselves unlikely to find marriage partners of a similar age - Victoria Nicolson's Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived Without Men after the First World War is an excellent, but heartbreaking, accounting.
> 
> A GP is a general practitioner - the first woman to recieve a medical degree in Great Britain (and go into private practice, as she would not be accepted as a physician at any hospital) was Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, in 1865. 
> 
> The song "Good Bye-ee" was a popular song written in 1917 by R.P. Weston and Bert Lee, inspired by the sight of a group of girls waving off a column of soldiers at a trainstation. It was popularized by big-name music hall stars like Florrie Forde.
> 
> The Aldbourne Memorial Hall was built as a memorial after the end of the Great War, and does have memorial plaques for both the world war one and world war two dead. The World War One list is, sadly, much longer.
> 
> Sloe gin is manufactured using the process here - I've never had any myself, but I'm told it's good.
> 
> Elaine Stevens is mentioned in Dick Winters' Biggest Brother, and is standing in here for the estimated 2 million civilians, adults and children, who evacuated to the country from large urban centers to escape bombing raids. This process occured in several waves; the first in 1939 and the second in late 1940.
> 
> "Hanging on the Old Barbed Wire" is another Great War song, which I have here modified - the first several verses ("If you want to find the General/Colonel/Captain) are quite depricating, describing all the places not the battlefield where you can find the named persons. The last verse tells us where you can find 'the old battalion' - hanging on the old barbed wire.
> 
> The drinking song being learned in the pub is "The Barley Mow" - I prefer the version by John Roberts and Tony Barrand, and highly recommend that you give it a listen.
> 
> We already talked about the National Service act after Chapter 15 - but all the jobs described here were options for women. The staffing issue Julie refers to with the Army Nurse Corps being short of nurses was a real problem from 1941-42 as the build up for the invasion of Italy began to take shape. (The Army didn't help themselves by refusing to take any of the 8,000 fully qualified African-American nurses in the US during this period, many of whom would have been happy to help.)


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry Welsh was promised fighting - and so far, fights have been thin on the ground.

He was told at some point there'd be fighting.

Well, it was already the beginning of October, and the only battle Harry Welsh had undertaken recently was with a pencil sharpener, and frankly speaking, the sharpener had won.

If someone had told him in basic that being an officer was a lot like being in school, he would have kindly told his commanding officer to put him somewhere else. And he had, several times - and somehow, in between demoting and promoting him six times, someone, somewhere, had taken a liking to the notion that Harry Welsh, who came from coal country and who’d never met a fight he couldn’t go a few rounds with, would somehow shape up into an officer and a gentleman. The ‘officer’ was currently in progress - though the appellation of ‘gentleman’ would continue to be highly debatable.

Because how could he be a gentleman when he was in with all these spit and shine college boys who'd come with their degrees and fraternity pins and class rings in hand, rank with privilege and the sure knowledge that when the war ended, they'd be able to return to Daddy's firm? Those men didn't have a lot of time for short guys whose fathers were small town newspaper editors, who'd worked through high school and joined the army as buck privates because it was a way to get out of town, who'd never even set foot on a college campus, let alone matriculated. 

And they sure as shit didn't have a lot of time for jumped-up women who thought they could do a man's job better than he could. 

He liked telling that story about copying Joan's answers on that test, but the truth was a little more complicated, a story that involved two people who always seemed to get picked last, who ended up, through no effort of their own, getting thrown together and finding after a couple of false starts that they worked pretty well as a team.  _ I'll hold him, and you punch. _ After a while it was just a matter of habit that he watched the door while she took her showers, that she proofread his papers before he turned them in, that he sent her regards to Kitty, and that in all of her letters Uncle Jack had a hello for him. (Black Jack Pershing, General of the Armies, have a hello for little old him - for Harry Welsh, whose people weren’t anything important.)

When they'd gotten their assignments handed down, one of the instructors had pulled him aside and handed him the paper like he was passing on a death sentence, heavily apologetic. 

"Look, Welsh, they're...they're putting you with Warren - the powderpuffs," the man had said. "Now, you're a good man and a good officer, so just...keep your head down, and there's a good chance they'll transfer you out so you can go back to working with real soldiers."

Harry hadn't known what to say to that, so he'd simply nodded, and taken his orders, coming around the corner to see Joan sitting on a bench, waiting for him, as she always did.

It had seemed silly to deny it. "Guess you heard that."

"Wouldn't blame you, Harry, if you wanted to serve with some real soldiers." Her smile was pinched, and she said  _ real soldiers _ with a bitterness in her voice like she was almost starting to believe it herself, that she wasn’t real, that the women she’d trained with weren’t real, that this was all still a colossal joke. 

Harry hated seeing her smile like that. He made a noise of dismissal. "Who needs the sons of bitches when you can get the bitches themselves?"  It wasn't a word he used often,  _ bitch, _ especially since he'd started calling Joan his friend and watched her try to shrug that particular insult off day after day, but here, at least, it made her smile. (Sometimes it could be a badge of honor, too.) "War's going to be real enough, when we get there," he’d added with a shrug.  _ Bullet doesn't care - man or woman, it'll kill you just the same. _ "Besides, if I gave up on you now I think Kitty would stop talking to me."

It wasn't _ exactly _ true - Kitty liked Joan well enough, as much as one could like a person when you'd only met them through letters and the occasional photograph, but she wasn't really one to make waves, and that seemed to be Joan's entire reason for existing some days. But it served its purpose, and it made his friend smile, and in the moment that was all he’d needed.

On the train to basic, she’d read him in on all the personalities he’d need to know in Easy, Sobel who only wanted to look better than everyone else, Nixon who liked to think he didn’t care but was fierce in his competitiveness, Winters who hated fools and rarely suffered them.

“If you have to tell people about me, what do you say?” he’d asked on that train ride, after listening to her all but eviscerate the commanding officer and quietly praise the two lieutenants, the way a woman talks about men she’s careful not to admire too closely lest someone get the wrong idea.

She’d laughed. “I tell them that you’re quick on your feet, and that for a man who loves to laugh, I’ve never seen anyone get more serious in a pinch. And that there’s no one I’d rather have at my back.”

If that was how she saw him, he’d take it. She was good at reading people and her assessments were usually fair. The officers had been exactly as she’d described, Nixon brash and loud, an acquired taste you needed to spend time with to appreciate, and Winters restrained but highly capable, a man who listened more than he spoke, his potential somewhat dimmed standing in Sobel’s shadow. Harry had stepped into Nixon’s vacated position with relative ease, and he was sure that some of that had to do with his association with Joan. That had served him well in those early days, both with the officers and the men, even when most of her fellow soldiers were still trying to figure out what to do with her newly elevated rank. If Joan, who generally knew what she was doing and didn't suffer a fool either, trusted him, then it stood to reason that they could, too - and so they did.

So now it was October, and they were settling into life in Aldbourne, the officers slowly dispersing away from the big house into rented rooms and houses large and small. Joan was with the Frobishers, Nixon had tapped the family coffers and was now living in fine style near the pub, and Dick and Harry, men of far more modest means, were sharing a very small room above the village grocery with the Barnes family.

It said something about the two of them, Harry thought, that Dick had proved himself by showing up at church and Harry by showing up for a party - but that didn’t seem to alter the way they were treated one way or the other. As far as Mrs. Barnes was concerned, she’d simply come into two new nephews, rather than boarders - and for that, Harry was grateful. It was nice to feel wanted, to feel at home, to eat breakfast at a small table with flowers on the plates instead of the mess where you were just as likely to get an elbow in your face. 

A knock on the front door roused them all from the business of eating breakfast, and Mrs. Barnes peered out of the front window and bustled into the hall to greet the new arrival. “Oh, it’s only Lieutenant Warren. Come in, dear, we’re just finishing breakfast. Cup of tea?”

“If you’re offering,” Joan said, stepping into the already crowded kitchen and making herself at home in an out of the way corner. Mrs. Barnes nodded, and filled her a mug from the large enamel pot on the back of the stove.

There was a thunder of small feet on the stairs and another smaller body flew into the room, pigtails flying. “H’lo, Joan!”

“Hi, Elaine,” Joan said, greeting the Barneses’ other ‘guest’, their thirteen year old evacuee from London, over the rim of her mug of tea. “Good morning.”

“There’s tinned tomatoes and toast,” Mrs. Barnes offered over the various heads at the breakfast table, still at her position near the stove. “Sure I can’t get you a plate, Lieutenant?”

Harry could practically hear Joan’s thoughts, quoting the Instructions for Servicemen about rations and never taking advantage of British hospitality but still being polite about it. “Oh, no thanks, Mrs. Barnes, I’ve eaten already. But the tea is lovely.”

“Joan,” Elaine asked, considering Harry and Dick’s uniforms as well as Joan’s, “why’d you decide to join the army?”

“Elaine, what a thing to ask. Pay her no mind, Lieutenant.”

“No, it’s a fair question, I don’t mind at all.” Joan took another sip of her tea and let Elaine start eating. “When I was a little girl, I played a lot with my brother, and my cousin, and they both loved toy soldiers - had whole armies of ‘em. Now, they were older than me, and they used to tell me that girls couldn’t be soldiers - but they needed someone to play with, right? So they’d gang up on me and take all the best pieces out of the toybox, and I always had to play the side that lost, but my uncle, who was a soldier himself for a very long time, used to get down on the floor with me after they’d been teasing me for a while and he’d play my side so I didn’t lose all the time, and he’d tell me stories all about famous warrior queens, like Blanche of Castile and Matilda and Boudicca, and he’d tell me I could be anything I wanted, if I tried hard enough.”

Joan’s voice changed a little. “He’d had three daughters of his own, you see, and they died when they were very little, and he was far away, and it made him very sad, for a long time, and playing with me helped him with that sadness a little bit. I was born after his little girls died, and my parents named me after him, so he's always had a big soft spot for me anyway.” 

Harry turned to look at Dick, who’d paused eating his own breakfast and was watching with soft fascination. It would have been hard to believe, hearing about Jack Pershing having a soft spot for anyone, but Harry’d read enough letters from home to know it to be true - his letters were practical, full of sound advice and an undercurrent of good humor, and no one reading them could have any doubt in the world that he loved his niece like she was his own daughter. “He always believed in me, whatever I did,” Joan went on. “And I didn’t really give it much thought until someone showed me an article in the paper saying that the army was taking women, and...that was that. I like a challenge - and the paratroops were the biggest challenge there is.”

It was more of Joan’s childhood than Harry had ever heard at one time, certainly far more than Dick had, and watching her tell it, in this crowded little kitchen amidst the worn linoleum and faded floral prints and well-scrubbed dishes, made it seem...more real, somehow, not something that had been made up to sell a newspaper. Looking at Dick again, Harry saw the faintest approving smile playing at the lieutenant’s mouth.  _ Lord, you don’t think...  _ No.  It was silly to contemplate - Dick looked that way at everyone. Harry put it out of his mind and returned to his breakfast.

“He sounds wonderful, your uncle,” Mrs. Barnes said with a smile.

“He was - he is!” she amended quickly. “Still alive and kicking, thank heaven. He writes me very regularly to keep me apprised of news at home. Lieutenant Winters got a chance to meet him once,” she added, glancing across the table at Dick, the two of them sharing one of those smiles that indicates a shared joke.

“Quite the gentleman,” Dick said, leaving out the part of the story where folksy sounding Uncle Jack was, in fact, the man who’d lead the entire American army in the last war.

“I’m very lucky to have him - and my aunt. I went to school far away from home, and I stayed with them a lot. They’re like a second set of parents.” 

“I’d like to read about warrior queens,” said Elaine, wistfully, her mind having obviously moved on.

“I’ll find you a book the next time I’m in Swindon,” Joan promised, as Mrs. Barnes protested about the cost. “Scout’s honor.”

Mrs. Barnes began moving the breakfast dishes into the sink. “So, what’s on today?” she asked, reminding Harry for a moment of his own mother trying to rush them off to school.

“Map reading - some prep for our field exercise this weekend,” Dick offered, after he’d finished chewing, mopping his plate with the last of his toast. “We’ll be out and about.”

Mrs. Barnes nodded sagely. “I’ll warn the neighbors.”

They finished breakfast, clattering plates and forks into the sink before grabbing for their coats. Harry waited until they were outside and on the road down to Littlecote to make his remarks. “Toy soldiers, huh? I’m suddenly getting a much better understanding of why you wiped the floor with us in war games back at Benning.”

Joan beamed. “Oh, you haven’t lived until Jack Pershing’s given you the entirety of the battle of Agincourt on the living room carpet. There were sound effects and everything, and he’d do part of the speech from Henry V at Harfleur - ‘once more into the breach, and fill the wall up with our English dead!’” She smiled, remembering. “As a child it was electrifying.”

“Expect it would be,” Dick said thoughtfully.

“Every time someone talks about him as having no sense of humor I have to laugh, because with me, he was the smartest, sweetest, funniest man in the world, and I adored him. That...that stoicism everyone else saw was just ...something he put on for the rest of the world. Because he thought he needed to, I guess.”

_ And you don’t know anything about putting on faces yourself, do you, Saint Joan?  _ Harry thought to himself with a smile as they continued their walk south. But that was a battle for a different time.

* * *

Littlecote House was, as ever, a hive of activity, men with clipboards and folders passing to and fro as battalion staff geared up for training objectives and the weekend’s field exercises. They were just taking off their hats to head towards the sitting-room-turned-classroom for the day’s lessons when a familiar voice stopped them in the hall.

“Lieutenant Warren, could I have a word?”

It was Sobel, looking particularly well-put together and, if they could all be so bold, just a little nervous. Joan nodded, her face diplomatically blank, and nodded the others off so she could speak with her C.O. alone. "What do you think he wants?" Dick wondered quietly aloud. Harry didn't want to speculate on the issue too long.

He had heard enough stories about Sobel before they'd gotten their assignments - Joan had plenty of tall-sounding tales about a Captain who'd peeped at his female soldiers in the showers, felt them up during equipment checks, and, on one particularly memorable occasion, punched a girl in the face after refusing his obvious and public advances, but Harry hadn't quite believed them until he'd actually met the man. And now that he’d worked with him a few months, he was quite sure there wasn't anything Sobel was incapable of - up to and including something harebrained like asking Joan on a date.

Which, as Harry thought about it, waiting in the hall, looked like exactly what was going on right now. 

He almost didn’t want to watch.

Strayer was mixing the officers up for the weekend exercise, trying, once more, to simulate jump conditions in the classroom, and he'd apparently already handed out assignments - Ron Speirs, from Dog Company, joined Harry in the hallway, casual and cautious all at once. "Welsh. It's you, me, and Warren, I think," he said, by way of a greeting, shaking Harry's hand. "She with you?"

"Talking with Captain Sobel," Harry offered, glancing worriedly down the hall.

Speirs' brow creased as he followed Harry’s gaze, Joan and Sobel still conversing quietly. He was cagey, the dark-haired Dog Company lieutenant from Boston, almost strategically so, another man Harry was glad he wasn't fighting against. But he also wasn't afraid to give his opinion - or to start something, if he thought it needed starting. (Harry’s people, in other words.) Neither Ron nor Harry chose to say anything as Joan finally came in to join them, the two of them suspiciously quiet, only their eyes inviting her to answer the question they were both asking in their heads. Joan finally looked up at both of them and frowned.

Ron broke first. "So. How's  _ that  _ invasion going?" he asked, as they began moving into the ersatz classroom for their map-reading and planning exercise.

“Inva - oh.” Joan glanced backwards a moment and realized what he was talking about. She gave a small laugh. "He's underestimated the strength of the resistance - and just how much they hate him."

Ron gave a dry chuckle. "Seems pretty obvious, to an outside observer. How much they hate him," he added for emphasis.

"I think he was hoping the element of surprise might be on his side.” A pause. “He offered to take me for a drink on Thursday, before the exercise. I declined.”

Harry’s eyes still bugged, though he tried to keep his voice down. “A drink? Sobel?”

“I think he was hoping I'd let bygones be bygones, or something. Lend him a bit of...prestige.” The assumption seemed appropriate - Sobel lived for appearances, and to be seen out with Joan would have been a coup indeed, though, Harry thought, a highly unlikely one. (It would take a serious knock on the head to forget about the indignities of boot camp.)

“And ...what are his chances?” Ron looked like he already had a pretty good idea, but hearing her say it was something else.

Joan didn't disappoint. "Snowballs and hell come to mind." Ron grinned, and Joan went on. “I told him it wouldn’t be  _ appropriate  _ for me to be seen out with him like that, and I wouldn’t want to get  _ him  _ into any trouble.”

“Him?” Ron rolled his eyes. “You’d be the one getting chalked for it.”

“Oh, I know that, but if I’d said it like that he would have told me it wouldn’t matter - except that it would.” She looked at Speirs with a wry smile. “Herbert Sobel lives in a world where the rules don’t matter until they do - and they never apply to him the same way they do to everyone else. If Harry took ...Sergeant Gordon out for a drink, that’s fraternization with lower ranks, and she’d be up on a charge - but if  _ he _ did it, then it’s fine. As long as Sergeant Gordon was amenable to ...anything that happened afterwards.”

“Which, knowing Gordon, would probably lead to a socked jaw,” Harry added for Speirs’ benefit. “And that charge we were talking about.”

“Never put yourself in a position to take anything from your soldiers,” Joan repeated, pulling out the folder full of reconnaissance photos and beginning to lay them out on the table. 

“I’ve heard Winters say that once or twice,” Speirs said, helping her to rearrange the photos. His voice dropped a little. “Hell of a way to run a company, if you can’t trust your C.O.”

She nodded once. “A competent leader can get efficient service from poor troops, while an incapable leader can demoralize the best.”

From the way she said it, it was a quote, but neither Ron nor Harry knew it. “Bob Sink?”

“John Pershing,” Joan replied with a slim smile, and Ron nodded, licking his lips and giving Harry a look that said  _ Trust her to have one of the old man’s quotes memorized _ . But they had little time for more - Strayer and the rest of his staff had arrived, ready to begin the day’s lecture.

They struggled for a good hour with grease pencils and protractors, calculating distances and evaluating approach strategies, routine things that made Harry think that there was, perhaps, more to the weekend’s exercise than someone was letting on. Would Strayer shuffle them again, after they’d done all their prep work with officers they were unfamiliar with?

The Major himself walked by and asked for a report from Ron, who gave it, pointing out Joan’s draftswoman-neat work on the map section they’d been given and the evaluation they’d made on the available aerial photos. Strayer didn’t seem to care - he nodded through Speirs’ answers, congratulated him and Harry on their analysis, casually ignoring Joan’s physical presence at the table while heavily complimenting work he wouldn’t acknowledge as hers. Harry watched her drum her fingers against a pencil, a fidget she resorted to when she couldn’t be seen to get angry. 

Answers given, Strayer finally seemed to notice her. “Warren, that reminds me - I understand you’re billeted with the Frobishers.” 

She sat up a little straighter, wondering where he was going with this. “You have that right, sir.”

“Word on the ground is that she’s the one planning a dance?”

Harry watched Joan try not to deflate, some of the fire going out of her eyes swiftly replaced with ice. “That’s correct, sir.” It was all Mrs. Frobisher had been able to talk about for weeks, and to hear Joan tell it, she’d only just narrowly escaped being asked to take a bigger part in planning it. Her success with the apple-picking had made its way around the company, and now, it seemed, she was being cast as the unofficial regimental organizer, a role she loathed.

“You let me know if you all need anything for that, will you? The men’s morale is very important, especially while we’re still here in camp. Need to keep their spirits up, remind them of what we’re all here fighting for.”

Joan was a model of outward calm, her soft smile obviously fake to anyone who knew her. “Absolutely, sir.”

He nodded, obviously pleased with himself, and moved off to the next table. Joan’s smile didn’t slip until after his back was turned, and she slapped the pencil against her hand in obvious frustration.

“Dog’s got target practice this afternoon, if you want to join us,” Speirs said with a smile. Joan looked at him with surprise and a look that clearly said  _ Ron Speirs - you get it. _ “It _ was _ all your work,” the lieutenant acknowledged quietly with one of his casual shrugs. “Shame he couldn’t see that.”

“As long as we take the objective,” Joan said, her voice flat and her smile fixed on, the look of a woman who’s trying to maintain a tight rein on her temper, and possibly her pride. “Doesn’t matter who gets us there.”

_But I think sometimes it does matter,_ Harry thought to himself. _I was promised fighting,_ _but damned if I’d like some of the battles Joan’s got._


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The promised dance has finally materialized - and, like any social outing worth its salt, is leading to plenty of speculation.

Since arriving in England, they had learned a great many things - that fries were chips, and chips were crisps, that one shouldn't confuse pants and trousers, that pies were rarely sweet, that puddings could be many things, and that bloody was not simply a word for noses.

And they had learned an indeterminable number of expressions for rain. Throwing, pissing, bucketing, beating, or lashing down, raining cats and dogs, nice weather for ducks, a fox's wedding.

Whatever the word one used, it was certainly coming down, and the officers, at least, were glad for the temporary stay of execution on the day's outside exercises. Operations had moved indoors to catch up on supply lists, letters home, and the never-ending daily reports and sick lists, spreading out over any and all available flat surfaces in Littlecote’s libraries and common areas. 

“Anyone know where Nixon is?” Meehan, from B Company, poked his head into the small library that was now serving as the junior officers’ study and rec room, hoping for a glimpse of the battalion intelligence officer. 

Harry looked up from the letter he was writing. “I believe he had a social engagement this afternoon.”

Tom Meehan’s smile widened a little. ‘Social engagement’ could mean all sorts of things - especially as this was Nixon they were talking about. “This….wouldn't happen to be that girl from the Boar, would it?”

“I'm sure he wishes it was,” Harry responded with a smile. It had taken the ladies of Aldbourne very little time to realize that the 506th’s dark and handsome S2 was always ready for a little fun on his nights out. His most recent conquest was one of the women working at the officers’ pub, a winsome thing named Irene - a confusing parallel to one of the soldiers in Easy Company that had already caused more than one embarrassment. “I’m fairly certain he’s at Joan’s - he's helping Mrs. Frobisher organize the dance.”

“How on earth did he pick up  _ that _ job?” Meehan looked strongly sympathetic. Most of the officers had, by now, at least met the WI president in passing, and whatever their feelings about her early placement had been, everyone was now very glad it was Joan who had drawn that particular short straw where billeting was concerned. 

An amused smile from Harry - this, at least, was a story he knew, and he glanced up at Dick, serene at the end of the table with a book and a mildly amused expression of his own. “Well, I think Joan ...happened to mention that Lewis's mother is a _Ryer_ , of the San Francisco Ryers - and Mrs. Frobisher took it from there.” 

Meehan stared, already half-smiling. "She wouldn't."

“Get mad or get even,” Harry said with a grin of his own. “I think it’s payback for all that press about her apple picking.” But they didn’t have time to speculate longer - the pair in question had appeared in the hallway, still shaking the afternoon’s rain off of their clothes as he complained about the wartime necessity of sharing umbrellas. “Well, hiya, there, kids, have fun on your afternoon off?”

"So much fun," Lewis said, in a tone that indicated it had been anything but, inspecting the state of his shoes with disappointment in his eyes. "That woman is relentless - we ought to let her plan the invasion." He threw his portfolio down on the couch and went to the side of the room to pour out a cup of tea. “Lieutenant Meehan! I expect you’re looking for me?”

Meehan stepped over to the sideboard to ask his question while Joan unpacked herself into a wingbacked armchair and fished a book out of her dripping bag. “Who’s the letter for, Harry?” she asked, and Harry wordlessly pushed an envelope across the table in response.

“There’s a clipping in there for you,” he added.

“Send her my love,” Joan said with a smile, leaving the book on her lap to read the latest news from the home-folks in Wilkes-Barre and Miss Katherine Grogan.

Meehan moved off, his question answered, and Lewis took his tea and his complaints to the chair opposite Joan’s, a couple of biscuits perched on the rim of his saucer. “You know, if I’m putting in all this work I expect to be properly compensated for my trouble, Warren.”

Joan looked up from the letter with practiced patience. “Lew, I know I’ve already told you that you're really not my type."   


This was obviously not going to deter Nixon - he was in the middle of his favorite game and would not be moved. "What, tall, dark, handsome, funny, impossibly rich?"   


"I was thinking 'drunk party boy'," she said, perfectly serious, “but ‘already married’ works, too.”

"Oh, well, in that case. Harry, help a man out here. What's Joan's type? I'm trying to convince her to make an honest man of me and I want to know who the competition is."

"How should I know?" Harry asked, bemused and a little annoyed that his letter wasn’t getting written. "We didn't date much at Benning, Lew, we didn't have the time."

"Well, if you had to call central casting..."

"Played that game already," Joan said quickly. "Eileen Hammond will tell you Gary Cooper's got the part."

"Oh, well, Gary Cooper. That's a tall order - Miss Hammond has good taste. Clean-cut All American type. Probably captained the football team,” he added dismissively. “I'm  _ sure _ you dated one of  _ them  _ in college."

Joan shook her head and returned to her letter, mildly entertained. "Mmm, nope, rowing - much nicer arms."

Nix raised his eyebrows, impressed that he’d managed to gain at least one piece of damning information about her physical preferences in men. “I'm learning all sorts of things about Saint Joan today. Majored in pre-law? Going to join daddy's firm when he graduated?”

“Business - still joining daddy's firm, though, that part’s accurate.”

“Newspaper editor?”

“Choir - a baritone.” 

Nixon sat up a little in his chair. “A man of culture! You surprise me. I would have taken you for one of those cheerleading types who needs the top man on campus to be wearing your class pin.”

Harry looked at Lew and sniggered. “Cheerleading? Joan? Really?”

Nixon ignored him and spoke over the rest of the room, looking for an ally. “Dick, help me out, I need an all-American clean cut officer type with nice arms and a delightful singing voice.” Dick, who up to this point had been very engaged in his work, looked up, confused. “We're trying to find Joan a date to the dance, since she won’t take me. You think Speirs would have a go?”

Dick considered the field, Lew sprawled in his chair and Joan casually draped over hers, still quietly observant of the rest of the room. He couldn’t help feeling this was a test of some kind. “I think she's perfectly capable of finding her own dates, Lew.”

Joan smiled and closed the letter, rising from her seat to pass it back to Harry, who looked like he was still stewing a little that he was going to make little progress for the foreseeable future. “You’re very sweet to bother, Lewis, and for sweet I do here mean ‘very annoying,’ but it’s a non-issue, anyway. I’ve got to open the thing with Sink.”

The three men all stopped. “What?”

She looked like she regretted admitting this aloud, but forged ahead anyway, moving around the table to pour herself a cup of tea, her back to the room. “She didn’t tell you? Usually someone needs to open the dance, and for us that’s Colonel SInk, but the regional head of the Women’s Institute has bunions, or something, and...anyway, she doesn’t dance, and Mrs. Frobisher got into it somehow, and the compromise they’ve worked out is that I’ll do it, as the highest ranking woman here. Couldn’t have the Colonel dancing with Miss so-and-so from down the road - it’s bad optics. So, once more into the breach.” She turned around at the still - stunned silence from the rest of the room and looked at the politely confused (or outright angry) looks from the rest of the officers. “Grandpa was a senator, I’m used to it. My dance partners are usually three times my age - one learns not to mind. And I’m sure he’ll hold off on groping me in front of an audience.”

Harry looked faint. “Please take that back, I don't need to be thinking about Sink groping anyone.”

“And besides,” Joan went on, obviously not enjoying the idea either, “the party’s really for the enlisted. Good manners would be to show for the beginning and then leave to let them have their fun. So - I’m not losing any sleep on arranging a date.” She picked up the kettle and, surprised by the weight, glanced inside - empty. “I’m going for hot water, anyone need anything?”

They shook their heads, and she left, kettle in hand, to go to the kitchen for a refill, while the room stewed a little bit over dance partners, absent girlfriends, Harry James music, and the idea of Sink dancing with anyone, let alone Joan.

Lewis, however, was looking very pleased with himself, despite this recent (and some might say troubling) development. He finished his biscuit with relish while the room returned to its normal temperature, and then rose from his chair to move closer to Dick and his morning reports at the end of the table. “You know, you may want to watch yourself, Dick,” he whispered with a smile, leaning in close to his friend’s ear. “Your indignation is showing.”

Dick quickly rearranged his face, unaware, apparently, that he’d been expressing anything, trying to smooth out the frown in his lips for something a little more neutral - but there was nothing to be done about the slight flush across his cheekbones - or the wildly pleased grin his friend was now wearing behind him, as if he’d just discovered a particularly delicious secret.

* * *

The evening of the dance promised a familiar scene: the Aldbourne Memorial Hall beginning to fill with servicemen, the single olive drab tone of their dress uniforms mingled, here and there, with the flash of a woman's party dress and the occasional Sunday suit. On the stage, the band was settling into their folding chairs, tripping over instrument cases and music stands while they arranged themselves and tuned up, greeting friends and neighbors on the floor below. Keen eyed observers would make note of Harriet Morgan and Captain Frobisher in quiet conference near the drinks table as Mrs. Frobisher, sporting a very smart party dress and corsage, attempted to drum more order into the bunting. Deep in the corner the Land Girls were already holding court, a known quantity where some of the other recent arrivals from other towns, keenly eyeing the Americans, were not. The temperature in the room was starting to rise, and someone had already thrown open a door, letting in the chill of a late October night.

"Bringing back any memories?" Johnny asked, hanging back at the edge of the room with a beer already in hand, very content, it seemed, to sit this one out with some of the other sergeants.

"Of chaperoning dances at the high school?" Marjorie sighed. "Oh, yes. Thankfully everyone here's old enough to drink, and I already know exactly what's in that punch. Oh, that was a time."

“Girls getting sick on their party dresses?”

Marjorie turned on Johnny with an incredulous smile. “Now, what makes you say it was just the girls? I don't know if you remember this stage of life, but teenage boys can be pretty stupid, too, when the occasion calls.”

Johnny shrugged in what might have been agreement. “We grow out of it. Mostly.”

“Yeah,  _ mostly,”  _ Marjorie repeated for emphasis. “Allen and I used to have a bingo card, for things like this. You've got...spiked punch, a pocket flask, chaperones off duty, sneaking out, a wardrobe error -"

Lipton interrupted Marjorie's list with a confused smile. "Now, wait just a minute - a  _ wardrobe error _ ?"

"That girl sitting next to -is it Thea? - missed a button on the front of her dress. Shame her friends didn't catch it, it looks awful." Marjorie seemed to briefly consider crossing the room herself to put the dress to rights, but a trill from the bandleader for attention cut her short. "Oh," she added,  _ sotto voce _ as Mrs. Frobisher took to the stage and the microphone for a speech, "This will be the ‘unnecessary introductions and speech.’ Then we’ll have ‘awkward opening number’ and after that, be on the lookout for one of my personal favorites - the 'didn't see it coming.'"

Lipton and Martin both stared, hardly paying attention as Mrs. Frobisher launched into her remarks. "And what's that?" Lipton asked, almost afraid to know the answer.

Marjorie only grinned. "The one couple you - well, didn’t see coming. So, we’ll just have to wait and find out who it is, won’t we?”

“Do we want to put some money on it?” Johnny asked with a grin, already very much enjoying this game. “A dollar says it’s Tab.”

Marjorie shook her head. “No, he’s too obvious, we’ve all seen whatever happens there coming. I’m saying Randleman and Connie Blake.”

But they didn’t get a chance to discuss further - the band had finally sorted themselves out enough to start on Glenn Miller’s String of Pearls, and Joan had joined the Colonel on the dance floor, one of the only women present in the much-hated skirt and pumps of the traditional WAC uniform.

“What on earth do you think they’re talking about?” Doris asked from the side of the room, watching the pair circle, Joan with her very best party face fixed on, laughing at something Sink had said.

“Search me,” Ruth replied flatly. “If I were her I’d be complaining about having to wear that damn skirt.”

“She looks nice,” Irene said loyally, Shifty lingering at her elbow with a cup of punch. “Wouldn’t have minded getting one myself.”

“Irene, if you can run in those boots, I know for a fact you can dance,” Ruth replied with vitriol in her voice. “All he’s made her do is look like a fool.”

“Wasn’t Sink’s idea,” Doris replied. “It was Mrs. Frobisher - said she ought to look like a lady. I heard her discussing it with Marj.”

“Well, you’re not going to catch Sink complaining about it,” Ruth said, still sour. “Or any of the officers. Look at ‘em - practically on the prowl.” And it was true - Joan’s legs did seem to be a source of fascination for a good deal of the room, interested parties leaning into their friends to discuss their chances for a dance as the song wrapped up and more couples took to the floor.

But it was in vain - a more determined knight was about to go try his luck with that particular dragon. "May I?" Nixon cut in with a smile and a charm that had done this a thousand times before at a thousand different dances, and Sink, a gentleman of the old school, let him, nodding to Joan, content to retire to the wings and enjoy his whiskey, ceremonial duties thus discharged. 

Nixon's hand was light on Joan's shoulder, the attitude of the perfect gentleman. "So, do I get a thank you?" he asked, trying to keep his usually irrepressible smile in check as the song began in earnest,  _ Fools rush in where angels fear to tread, and so I come to you, my love, my heart about my head.  _

“Didn’t we have this conversation already?” she said, only slightly aggrieved. "I've danced with plenty of men that outrank me, Lew."

"But not plenty of Bulldogs - the honor of the Blue is at stake!" Lewis proclaimed with his usual brand of mock seriousness. “Had to get a beat on all those Johns Hopkins boys who didn’t know what a good time looked like.”

"Are you drunk?" Joan asked, turning aside a little to smell his breath.

"Not more than usual," he replied, meeting her eye with a smile. "Didn’t seem fair, the Sink thing. I figured you ought to get in one good dance in tonight, seeing as how Harry's a head shorter than you.”

"And you're saying no one else would ask, is that it?" Joan’s voice had a stiletto edge to it. “Was that what all that arranging a date business was about?”

“Well, we are already dating," he added, for effect. She rolled her eyes. "I'm saying you're one of the prettiest girls in the room, bar none, your family’s got more stars in it than the Paramount logo, and no one else has the brass on his jacket to do something about it." She stared at him. "Yeah, I said it. I've got eyes. Truth of it is, you terrify most of them - even Sink."

Her gaze had cooled so much as to be almost glacial. "Is that so?"

"Yep, pretty much," Lewis reported, casual as a breeze. "Not me, though. You asked me if I was drunk and the truth is, just enough not to care." He grinned, but the alcohol and the music seemed to be working on him, making him lose some of his punchy, antic energy, and transmute him into something softer.  _ Fools rush in where wise men never go... _ "No, I, um, I...I don’t know if I told you this, but I had a letter from Blanche- from my sister,” he started, a strange non sequitur, even for him. “She read an article - probably from one of the West Coast papers, I don’t know, about all the things you did at OCS and it...got her through some things.”

Joan softened, a little, the hard edges put on pause, wondering where this was going. Nixon went on, the punchy man from earlier replaced by someone who was...genuine of feeling. “She's had a hard time... lately, my father's an idiot, and my mother is...my mother, and she...she really looks up to you, is what I'm trying to say.” He chuckled, realizing he was rambling. “Anyway, she wrote to tell me that if I didn't stick with you when the going was tough, then she wouldn't speak to me again. So, as your boyfriend who isn’t a boyfriend, and a proud graduate of the Annie Sutton School of the benefit of the doubt, I owe you a dance, at least, Joan Warren, and the job of telling you you're pretty, since no one else here’s got the balls to do it."

If she'd been expecting a speech, that wasn't it, and Joan's face was hard to read - though she was smiling, a little, perhaps despite herself. "You're a very strange man, Lewis Nixon," she said, finally. “But thank you.”

"Thank you, I aim to be. So should we go another round after this, or should I make Dick take you for a spin?” She said nothing. “You'd make a cute couple, you know," he observed.

She paused. "You shouldn’t tease about things like that,” she said, her voice quiet. “He’s your friend.”

“Wasn’t teasing,” Nixon replied, now more sober than he’d been all evening. “What, he's not your type or something? I grant he's not the rowing captain, but he's pretty damn close.” 

The last notes of the song were fading out and the band was launching into the next song, picking up the beat a little. Joan seemed to be choosing her words very carefully now. "Whoever catches his eye will be a very lucky woman," she said finally, her voice measured. 

Lewis snorted. "Now, that, Miss Warren, was a political answer. Very clever of you to avoid _ actually answering the question _ ." Near the edge of the dance floor, Dick was already waiting with two glasses in hand. “Ah, just the man. Joan was just asking about you. Now, I will take those -" he took the glasses from Dick's hands, placing Joan's hand in one of them, "and you can take this. Good. You kids have fun." Both of them gaped for a moment, but Lewis wasn’t taking no for an answer, knowing the rest of the room was watching with keen interest. Dick offered the smallest of apologetic shrugs, and Joan rolled her eyes and accepted it, consenting to return to the mix of dancers for a slightly more upbeat tune.

“I'm sorry about him,” Dick said.

Joan looked distant for a moment, watching something behind Dick, but she recovered herself in good time. “You do an awful lot of apologizing for Lewis Nixon, I hope you know.”

“Do I?”

She nodded. “How _ did _ you two become friends?”

Dick considered this a moment, the expression on his face making it look like that was a hard story to explain. “Honestly, I...I can’t remember. How did you and Marjorie?”

Joan had to think about the question for a minute herself. “We were the only two people on the train to basic not talking about nail polish. She asked to see what I was reading - and we went from there.”

“And? What were you reading?”

"A technical manual." She smiled at whatever expression he hadn't managed not to make. "I'm real fun at parties, I promise."

"This one's going okay," Dick offered, but she looked like she didn't believe him.

"I knew on that train I was only going to get one chance. When you ...come from a family like mine there's usually not a very large margin for error. If I’d washed out...the papers would have had a field day.”

“But you didn’t.”

“And the papers still had a field day anyway,” Joan said with an abbreviated smile. “Which is my own fault, I suppose, since I invited them to that review, so I shouldn’t complain about it.”

Dick nodded, unsure what else to say, and allowed the music to carry them for a few moments more. Joan was looking distant again, and vaguely troubled. “Something else on your mind?”

Joan pressed her lips into a line. “Four o’clock, from the drinks table.” Dick tried to gently steer so he could look in the direction she was indicating, only to find their CO glowering over the room from behind his glass of punch. The expression did not bode well.

“What’s his problem?”

Joan tightened her lips. “Who knows?” But something in her expression indicated that she might have an idea - and one she really didn’t care to discuss.

The sight of their CO stewing on the sidelines had reminded Dick of something. “You know, you never said anything, about Sobel. That night at dinner, after the review. Your uncle kept asking you how things had been and you just...sat and smiled.”

She grinned at that one, a question she, at least, was fully prepared to answer. “It was better to watch him squirm about it. He knew what he'd done, and so did everyone else there. I already had the high ground- the threat of making him look bad in public. As far as I was concerned, I’d already won. Making him admit to it would have just been...low.”

“Getting even again?” he asked. She smiled, and nodded.

“That song and dance my uncle did over dinner was just to see what everyone else would do. He was...testing you all.” She smiled, briefly, thinking of something else, obviously debating whether to actually speak it aloud. “And he said afterwards that you impressed him.”

“What, me?”

She nodded. “He admired your ability to keep your calm, even when I wouldn’t make a go at Sobel. He...said it made for a good leader.” She paused a moment, remembering something, and then looked back up at him. “I told him he wasn’t wrong.” 

Her words seemed to hit him somewhere below his sternum, and it was only after a moment that he realized that the music had also stopped, and that they were simply...standing on the dance floor, awkwardly still embracing. He was surprised at how fast the time had gone - usually a dance was just about the longest thing in the world. “Thank you for the dance, Dick. Please feel free to punch Lewis on my behalf if he says anything mean about it later.”

“You’re going?” He didn’t know why he’d asked.

She nodded, her eyes tracking again in the direction of Sobel. “It’s….it’s been a long day.”

He moved off of the dance floor to watch her make a beeline for the coatroom, quickly interrupted by Sobel, intercepting her to beg for a moment of her time. Dick watched the conversation with quiet interest, the Captain obviously asking for something she didn’t want to give and Joan trying, as politely as she could, to decline, finally making her break and leaving him without whatever it was he had wanted.

“What do you think that was that about?” Lewis had reappeared, one of his glasses from earlier either already consumed or lost to the hands of a willing bystander.

“Said she was tired and needed to go back to her billet,” he said blandly, lying through his teeth, his head still spinning a bit, from the dance that had passed in a moment and the shock of what Joan had said. “Long day.” 

_ She told her uncle about me. She told Jack Pers - Well, that doesn’t mean anything,  _ he reminded himself,  _ she probably told him about all of us. She was writing home about boot camp. _

“You’d make a cute couple, you know.”

Dick looked at Lewis and his Cheshire-cat smile with unease. Him...and _ Joan _ ? There were alarm bells going in his head, from so many things, the conversation they’d just had and that wall of pictures in Annie’s bedroom and Annie Sutton’s admonitions about taking things and trusting the officer next to you, and he didn’t know what to say to it, except the staggeringly obvious. “We’re about to go to war, Nix.”

“And what the hell does that have to do with anything?” Lewis asked, taking another sip of his punch. “Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old time is still a-flying, and this same flower that blooms today tomorrow will be dying."

Dick stared. "A bit morbid.”

“But  _ very  _ apropos.” 

Dick, however, said nothing more, and Lewis let the matter lie, the two of them watching the floor fill with dancers. But few things escaped Nixon’s notice, and it occurred to him, watching Dick for a moment more, that his friend had not disagreed with him in much the same way Joan had avoided giving him an answer, and he pocketed that brief expression of promise he’d seen in Joan’s eyes for another time when he could examine it more closely, and study it, perhaps, alongside the long and lingering glance he’d seen Dick take in the direction of her departure.

* * *

“Was...was that it?” Lipton asked Marjorie, watching Winters and Warren exchange polite thank-yous on the dancefloor and depart in separate directions, two perfectly well-behaved people who’d just spend the whole dance with something like stars in their eyes, laughing at each others’ jokes. (Johnny had long abandoned them to go look for Luz and Julie.)

“No,” Marjorie said, watching Joan’s collision with Sobel with concern. “But I think  _ that _ might be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A Ryer, of the San Francisco Ryers, probably wouldn't have meant anything to Mrs. Frobisher without some context - the Ryer family was rich enough to own an island near Sacramento. During World War two, Doris Ryer Nixon put her personal philanthropy concerns on hold to become the vice president of the American Women's Voluntary Services. She died in 1945 at the age of fifty four.
> 
> Gary Cooper (1901-1961) was a film star whose career spanned both the silent and talking film eras. Athletic and incredibly good looking, his natural acting style gave him the appearance of the all-American hero. He won the 1942 Academy Award for Best Actor (his second nomination and first win) for Sergeant York, a biopic about Medal of Honor recipient Sergeant Alvin C. York's exploits during World War One.
> 
> Glenn Miller (1904-1944) was an American bandleader and trombonist. Too old to join the services, he wrote to the Army asking to form a 'modernized army band' and was allowed to do so. Already a household name, his Army Air Forces Band toured Europe and made recordings until 1944, when his plane disappeared in heavy weather over the channel. 
> 
> The 'Blue' is slang for Yale, Nixon's alma mater, after their school colors. Their football mascot was, and continues to be, the Bulldogs.
> 
> The poem that Nixon quotes at the end is "To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time," by Robert Herrick. To be fair, Nixon actually misquotes the poem- the line is 'And this same flower that **smiles** today/ Tomorrow will be dying.'
> 
> I feel I would be remiss to not give you the start of evening's set list:
> 
> String of Pearls - Glenn Miller and his Orchestra, November 1942
> 
> Fools Rush In - Tommy Dorsey and his Orchestra, Frank Sinatra, March 1940
> 
> Blue Champagne - Jimmy Dorsey and his Orchestra, Bob Eberley, September 1941


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dance, on the whole, was judged to have been a success - but not everyone is pleased with the results of the evening, and are becoming vocal in their displeasure.

The morning after the dance found the company somewhat ... reorganized. Talbert’s bed was unslept in, hardly a surprise given the looks he’d been exchanging with Celia Mansel all evening, and Gene Roe was conspicuously absent as well, doubtless to the house of the yet-unmet girlfriend. Shifty and Irene were found spooning together in Shifty’s bunk, both of them fully clothed and in no way indecent, and Joe Toye rolled back into the barracks at some early hour looking very pleased with himself. And, proving the adage that the more things change the more they stay the same, early risers would have also noticed Joan and Dick doing their customary separate early morning runs, neither of them having taken part in the better part of the previous night’s excesses.

But none of this compared to the obscene delight taken in finding Lipton and Marjorie sleeping slumped onto each other’s shoulders in the dayroom, the only rumples in their dress the result of having spent the night on a bench, as if they had been waiting in a bus station for a ride that had never arrived.

“Morning, kids,” Perconte said over breakfast, pulling the shade wide open until the pair of sergeants woke up in the morning sun squinting and frowning. “Anything you two want to share with the class?”

“Oh, buzz off, Frank,” Marjorie said with verve, her hair looking worse the wear from a night spent sleeping sitting up. “We were waiting for you all to get home.”

“Aw, gee, thanks, Ma,” Frank replied with a grin.

“Stop sassing your mother,” Lipton put in sleepily, rising slowly to his feet and shuffling off to find some coffee. “Shouldn’t have to wait up all night for you hooligans.”

On the whole, the thing was judged to have been a great success, and Mrs. Frobisher made sure to stop by Nixon’s billet to tell him so - though Nixon, to the surprise of exactly no one in Easy, could not be bothered to answer the front door, especially after the night he’d had. Finding him unavailable, she unleashed her collected thoughts to Joan over luncheon, about how well she and the Colonel had looked, and what a handsome couple she and Lieutenant Nixon had made, and how it was poor form for her to leave early when she was making such a success of the evening and “leaving that poor captain in the lurch.” Joan said something noncommittal about her shoes and a blister and next week’s field exercise, and Mrs. Frobisher, deeming that an appropriate excuse, let the matter lie. Captain Frobisher, also having assumed some of the less onerous _ in loco parentis  _ responsibilities, kept his opinions on Joan’s dancing partners to himself (at odds, as they were, with his wife’s) and merely asserted that Joan had looked very nice, and had danced beautifully.

By the end of the weekend plans were already well underway to put something together for Christmas, and, looking towards the distant future, for Valentines’ Day, though Harriet Morgan (and several of the town’s more observant mothers) were reorganizing their thoughts on the 506th in the wake of ripped stockings, lost buttons, and several too-innocent replies to questions about how the evening had gone.

But until December, there were weapons drills to run and phrasebooks to learn - and of course, more of the hated field problems. It wasn’t, perhaps, that Easy hated the field problems themselves, but more the clarity it was bringing to certain other realities that, as they listened to lectures about Normandy and the  _ bocage  _ that awaited them after their jump, were becoming very, very unsettling indeed. Soon the guns and the bullets and the bombs would be real, and their very lives would be in the hands of these men currently crouching with them in ditches and behind walls, making judgements that depended on precision and swiftness.

And on the subject of swiftness, Chuck was checking his watch for what seemed like the fifth time that morning, and exchanging a glance with Doris, kneeling in the swale of the stone wall waiting for orders. The instructions and objectives they’d received this morning couldn’t have been more clear if they’d been chiseled in stone by the Deity, and the results were now similarly clear. “Sobel’s late.”

Doris snorted. “Again?”

“Are we _ really _ surprised?” She shook her head. “You’d better tell the others - we could be here a while.” Chuck returned to watching the road, and Doris scuttled back to her position to relay the news to the remainder of the platoon.

“What’s the hold up?” Judy asked, adjusting her gloves as she crouched near the wall and picked some grass off the knees of her trousers. “Isn’t this where we’re supposed to be?”

“Sobel’s late.”

“What,  _ again _ ?” Judy made a face. “He’d be late to his own funeral.”

“You think I don’t know that? Try telling him. We’re waiting here - unless they want to try something clever.” Doris made a gesture towards Dick, Joan, and Lipton, huddled in conference towards the center of the line.

“Wish they’d hurry it up,” Judy groused. “I’m ready for lunch.”

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to tell Sobel he’s messed with your mealtimes when he gets here, Judy - that’ll go over real well.” Doris looked over to Chuck, exchanging hand signals, and adjusted the sling on her gun. “Oh, we’re moving - across the road and enfilade on the wall. Guess we’re doing this ourselves.”

“Fucking finally,” she heard someone say from down the row. “Why don’t they just put Winters in charge already?”

Dick watched, pleased, as the whole maneuver worked flawlessly - Joan and Bill crossing the road and falling in along the wall to cap the T while Lipton hooked around and the remainder fell in until the crossroads was secured, with no opportunity to get in or out. Dick allowed himself a brief smile for the ‘extreme strategic value’ of the local telephone box, and checked his watch again - right on schedule. It was as if they’d planned it that way all along - though there was one small problem. In taking the road, they had unintentionally created a traffic hazard.

The elderly gentleman on the bicycle seemed to be taking this sudden encirclement in good humor; he pulled up short and held up his hands in surrender as Dick approached. “Well, Yanks, you’ve done it now,” he said, with a subdued smile and the air of someone in on a tremendous joke. “You’ve captured me.” It took Dick a moment to recognize the Littlecote gardener, and he touched his helmet in salute, trying and failing to remember the man’s name.

In a moment, Joan was vaulting the wall to join Dick in the crossroads, rifle tucked under her arm. “Mr. Nicolson!”

The man’s face lit up as he recognized the voice. “Lieutenant Warren! I was telling your colleague here I’m afraid I’m not a very high value target.” He paused to let Joan chuckle at that. “You know, my wife was saying just the other day she’s missed seeing you about at Littlecote. Still drawing? ”

Joan nodded, still on high alert as she continued glancing around the crossroads, trying to be polite while maintaining focus. “Not as much as I’d like. I miss being handy for the river, that’s for sure. You’ll have to tell Mrs. Nicolson I said hello.”

But it wasn’t exactly the best time for a chat - for coming up the road, loud as blazes and with no pretensions to stealth, was Sobel and the rest of the company, right into the eye of the crossroads and thirty odd rifle barrels. The old gardener took one look at Dick and Joan’s faces, both full of quiet anger, and looked sympathetic. “Would that be the enemy?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Dick said softly, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “Yes, it would.”

Mr. Nicolson nodded, understanding the look. “I’ll leave you to it, then,” he said in a stage whisper, setting his feet back onto the pedals to set off. “Good luck!”

But they would need more than luck for the look that was now on Sobel’s face, a mixture of anger, disappointment, despair, and plain old fashioned resentment as he pulled up short of the intersection, realizing they already had the objective well in hand without him - and, in point of fact, despite him. “Tell him it was my idea,” Joan suggested, almost sounding desperate. 

Dick’s face was still drawn. “I’m not sure that’ll help.”

* * *

The reality of Sobel’s late arrival was, in fact, worse than they’d originally feared; there was some business with a cut fence, and missing cows, and orders from Major Horton when Major Horton wasn’t even in the same county to deliver them. It was, in other words, a _ disaster _ , unless you were one of the enlisteds, who’d thought the whole thing a tremendous joke - but several days later, no one was laughing.

It wasn’t every day that there were officers around the barn, or the Nissen huts that housed the company; there were some lines (it was felt) that it was necessary not to cross when it came to privacy, and the billets of the non-commissioned officers were one of them. (Sobel would have done it - but Winters, Warren and Welsh weren’t him, and had no pretensions to ever being so in the future.) Apart from inspections, they allowed them their space - which was why today’s visit seemed a little out of the ordinary.

“Hey, Bill,” Joan said, knocking on the door and waiting nervously outside like she was here to pick up a date. “I need Marjorie; June said she’d be over here.”

“What, you’re too good for me now?” Bill asked with a grin. “Just kidding. Ay, Marj! Nice lady looey at the door wants to talk to ya.”

Marjorie rolled her eyes, joining Bill at the entry to the Nissen hut, her arms folded against the cold. “Hey, what’s up?”

Joan glanced around her friend, suddenly aware that anything they said was sure to have an audience. “Take a walk with me, will you?”

It didn’t take a genius to notice the concern on Joan’s face, and Marjorie wasn’t going to ask - if Joan was looking for help with something and didn’t want anyone else to hear what it was, something was seriously up. She went for her coat and cover, following Joan’s quickstep down the road until they reached the grove of trees that was popular with courting couples as a way to get out of the public eye. It felt like one of those trips to the bathroom in high school, and she couldn’t help wondering what sort of terrible secrets this was going to unfold. “Joan, what's going on?” she asked, watching her friend pace for a moment to collect her thoughts.

“Dick’s being court martialed.”

She might as well have set off a bomb. “Court martialed? What the hell for? He couldn't break a rule if it was already cracked and he pushed it off a table.”

“Failing to inspect the latrines.”

Marjorie stared. “You’re shitting me.” It wasn’t a pun.

“Of course that's not it,” Joan was practically hissing. “Sobel's angry we successfully completed the exercise without him and he got gigged for letting those cows out. He’s already handed out company punishments and now he's trying to take it out on Dick and Dick called his bluff. And I think he’s...still stewing about the dance.”

“God, that man’s pettiness continues to amaze. So you said no! Who the hell’s going to have noticed that besides him? You danced with Sink, too - is he going to go after the C.O.? No - Joanie, no. You don’t get to beat yourself up about that. That man’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of a crater and you couldn’t have known he’d do something like this.”

“Well, now I feel like I got Dick into this mess and I don’t know what the hell I can do to get him out. And I have to do  _ something _ . But ...I can’t very well go to Sink and cry foul on ...a...a hunch! And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to go into Normandy knowing someone’s gunsight is on the back of the C.O.’s head.”

“Because if Dick’s gone, so is company morale and any confidence they’ve got in any of you,” Marjorie realized softly.  _ He’s popular, no mistake about that - and if we didn’t hate Sobel before, we’ll sure hate him now. _ “And then all we’ll have is a good old-fashioned mutiny, and it’ll be too late to do anything about it.” She sighed heavily. “What a waste. I’m sure they’ve got him on KP now, or something.”

Joan nodded, still a little lost in her own thoughts. _ Idiots,  _ Marjorie thought to herself.  _ One of the best brains in the outfit and they’ve got him peeling potatoes, because we have to have order and discipline, and Sobel’s good at finding chickenshit.  _ If she knew the man - and she liked to think that after more than a year she did - he’d probably changed the schedule at the last minute, or found a single hair on a brush out of place, or started the inspection while the latrine was still being cleaned, a single, ridiculous infraction that certainly wasn’t worth the price of a man’s military career. All for the sake of somehow saving face about who was really in charge, when everyone who was anyone knew there wasn't a snowball's chance of that ever happening. The men and women of Easy had long since made their decisions about who they respected and listened to, and nothing - especially a trumped up courtmartial on an idiot charge - was going to change that.

It wasn’t leadership, it was...god, who even knew? Because the real leaders were the ones getting things done, the corporals and sergeants making sure everyone shined their shoes and turned up on time and - 

Suddenly a light went on. “No- wait. We’re pulling a punch here. What does Sink always say about sergeants?”

Joan looked suspicious. “Can’t run an army without ‘em.”

“So what if  _ the sergeants _ revolt -  _ before _ the invasion, not after. Turn in our stripes now - resign, all of us. Chuck, Mike, Terry, Bill - they’re on your side already, Joan, we hate him as much as you do. The unit’s dead in the water without us, and Sink  _ knows it _ . Invasion is coming up quick enough, he’ll have to do something fast, and that’s just...just ballsy enough to get his attention and just crazy enough for him to stop and try to figure out what’s going on.”

“It could explode in our faces,” Joan cautioned. “You all get sent down - or shot - and we’re back where we started.”

“Do we have any other options?”

Joan looked uncomfortable. “Well, apart from me reporting Sobel for rape.”

Majorie waved it aside. “We’re not that desperate.”

“Good, because I’m not that committed."

There was a sob in Joan’s voice, and Marjorie stared at her friend, her eyes widening as she realized what she’d just said. “You were really thinking about it, weren’t you?”  _ Jesus, she came down here to figure out how we could -  _

Joan’s face was full of shame, and Marjorie pulled her in for a hug. “I didn’t know what else to  _ do _ , Marj - He needs to go, and that seems to be the only language anyone around here would understand from me.”

“You have to stop trying to solve everything on your  _ own _ , Joan,” she begged, rubbing her shoulders and meaning every word. “We’re a company, right, a team? And they’d have you out for that, Uncle Jack or no - for being a liability. Then we’d be down two officers and where the hell would that leave Harry?” Joan choked out a laugh. “And as your biggest fan keeps saying, ‘You can read a gawd-damn map.’” Marjorie added, trying ( and failing, mostly,) to capture Bill Guarnere’s deep Philly accent. It got another choked laugh from Joan, though, and that was what counted. “No, I’ll do it,” Marj repeated, her face set in a thin and unrelenting line. “Give me a day to get ‘em all in the same room and tell ‘em how the land lies, and we’ll have our mutiny.” But something was still bothering her. “But you’re right. Strayer’s going to need something else - something else that tells him Sobel really can’t be trusted with us - in a language they do speak.” 

“What are you thinking about?”

“I’m thinking about how we don’t have to invent a goddamn thing.”

It was Joan’s turn to look uncomfortable with a suggestion. “I’m sure Strayer already knows about all that, Marj.”

“Does he? A lot of things went on at Toccoa that I don’t think anyone but us saw, Joan. And now we’ve got the perfect pipeline straight to his desk.” Her grin was sharp and dangerous. “Just how do you think Lewis Nixon feels about his best friend getting court martialed?”

* * *

Nixon, as it turned out, had some very strong opinions about the matter, starting with one glaring issue. “And they couldn’t even SPELL IT RIGHT.”

“Give Bill Evans a little credit,” Marjorie said in her very best mothering voice, following Nixon and Joan inside the house he was renting. “He probably had Sobel breathing down his neck and I can’t say I’d remember how to spell under those conditions either.”

“It’s disgraceful, is what it is,” Lewis said dismissively. “And now Strayer’s trying to figure out how we’re going to manage a court martial about  _ latrines.  _ It’s absurd. Drink?”

“Little early,” Marjorie said, looking around to see if there was some lady friend half-hidden on a sofa of which she should be aware. (None such appeared, but then, it was a big house.)

Lewis shrugged and poured himself one. “So, what brings you ladies to my humble abode?”

“Lewis, we have...something,” Joan said, fiddling with the scrollwork on the back of one of the dining room chairs. “About the court martial. We think. But we...we need your help.”

“Does it involve murder?” Lewis asked, only half-joking. “Because if so - “

“No, it’s…” Joan looked like she was searching for words she couldn’t quite find. “I can’t...tell you everything, but what I will say is that there will be a day, in the...somewhat near future, where you will hear something outrageous, something you will never in a million years believe to be true, and then you will know it is time for you to start talking about what we….are going to tell you. I need you to listen, very closely, and when that day, and that time, comes, I need you to take what we are going to tell you now and  _ bury him with it.” _

The whole attitude of this speech was so cautious, so unlike Joan, that even Nixon, who couldn’t take anything seriously, stopped to listen. She was fighting something, deep in herself, something that made her vulnerable, and afraid, and for a moment, Lewis almost didn’t want to know what it was. His eyes slid to Marjorie, standing behind Joan, half-sentinel and half-shadow.

“You were there the day he punched Eileen. We all heard what he said.” The sergeant’s voice was low and level, keeping things simple, easy to understand. “There was a lot at Toccoa that you didn’t hear and never saw.”

Lewis looked at Joan, pale and angry, at Marjorie, her mouth set in a thin line, and held up a finger for a pause, before rising from the table and grabbing two more glasses and a bottle of his ever-present Vat 69 from the sideboard. He poured a generous helping into each glass and set them down in front of the two women. “Okay. Now I’m listening.” 

By the time they finished, it was nearly an hour later, and Lewis was looking a little pale himself, his own glass long since empty.

“God, why didn’t you...”

“Say something? Lewis, who would have listened?” The liquor, and the act of unburdening herself, had loosened Joan up a little, and in letting it all out, some of the fear had gone, too, and now she was just plain angry. “You? Sink? He already was looking for reasons to get rid of us. If we’d filed complaints, that just would have been one more mark in the ‘can’t hack it’ column. We put our masks on. We dealt with it. It was never...physical, in a way we couldn’t handle. Lieutenant Sutton made sure of that - and she made certain we could at least try to fight it if it did. That wasn’t our first combatives lecture by a long chalk.”

“Those group trips to the latrines…”

“It wasn’t just Sobel we were afraid of, Lew. We didn’t have a lot of allies that summer.” She looked at her hands and sighed. “Look, I’m not a damaged dove, Lew, and I’m not telling you all this for... pity. I was prepared to ...forget it, for the sake of...keeping us together, but every single one of those stories is one more reason why that man is unfit. And Strayer needs to hear them. And maybe that will help him...understand some things. About things he’s going to hear. About what people have done.”

Lewis’s eyes narrowed. “What are people going to do?”

“We can’t tell you, Lew. For your own good. It’s better if you don’t know.”

Lewis looked from Joan to Marjorie, doing a little bit of math in his head, and finally raised an eyebrow when the sum worked out. “I don’t think men would have tried it on.”

“ _ Men _ wouldn’t have had to,” Marjorie said pointedly. “Other men would  _ believe _ them.”

It was true, and after everything he’d just heard, he knew it - and he nodded. “And that’s where I come in.”

Marjorie’s head followed his in affirmation. “That’s where you come in.”

He looked between the two of them and finally laughed. “God, was this how Brutus felt the night before the Senate?” he asked with a snort, taking a good long look at his empty glass before rising swiftly from his seat, the meeting clearly at an end. “Right, we never had this conversation, and you were never here.” 

“Thank you.” Marjorie rose from her chair and put her jacket back on, heading for the door. 

“Least I can do.” Lewis watched Joan, struggling into her coat and, ever so lightly, laid a hand on her arm. “Joan.” She looked up, her jaw still clenched. “Why?” His voice was soft and his eyes full of questions. “Why do this at all? Why stay? And don’t give me that joke about Warrens and missing wars, because it has to be more than that.”

She sighed. “You know Uncle Jack was one of the first generals to allow women in with the army? Not just nurses, professional women - switchboard operators. They were as close to the front line as you could get, and they worked like dogs to help him win that war. Those women, answering those phones? They helped win us the right  _ to vote _ , Lew, because we were there, and we could  _ say _ that we were there, that we’d helped  _ do something  _ worth doing. And I ...someone down the road is going to want something, and I want to say I helped her get it. And they can’t brush off the Pershing Princess as easily as anyone else.”

As answers went, it was both simple and complex - but it was genuine, and Lewis seemed to see that. “Well, I’m sorry. That you didn’t think I would listen, before. You’re probably right, and I’m sorry.”

It was Joan’s turn to smile a little. “But you’re listening  _ now _ ,” she reminded him. “And that’s what matters.”

He nodded, as if he were also reminding himself of this. “Does Harry know?”

She shrugged. “He’s heard some. Not everything.”

“I won’t even ask about Dick.”

Another shrug, filled with resignation. “If you want, you can tell him. If he asks, when this is over.” The prospect seemed to fill her with even more dread than what they’d been discussing before, and it would have made Lewis smile, if it didn’t also make him incredibly sad. “But I don’t need his pity, either.” 

“You’ve never  needed _anyone’s_ pity, Saint Joan. And no one could accuse you of  _ wanting _ it.”

Joan pursed her lips, but there was something of a smile there. “Every time someone says that women can’t fight, you know what I really want to tell them? Fighting for your right to be anywhere’s part of the... background noise of being a girl, and men wouldn’t even know half of how hard it is.”

Lewis chuckled at that. “That’s good. That’s...that’s really good. I’m going to tell that to Blanche,” he decided. “In my next letter. Right,” he said, finally, tapping his glass on the table. “Go home, get some sleep, have another whiskey. And next week we’ll bury the bastard.”

Joan nodded, adjusting her cap and joining Marjorie in the street as Lewis waved them off from the door.

_ So that’s what it means,  _ he thought to himself, watching the two women walk down the road, their shoulders close together.  _ Get mad or get even.  _ The whole afternoon was bringing back a lot of memories he wished he couldn’t own to, conversations with Annie Sutton about why he couldn’t say or do things as he’d said or done them before. She had given no such sermons to Sobel - and this was the result, a whole mountain of unfinished business that the women of Easy could neither forgive, nor forget. And they’d get even, all right. He owed Sutton a letter, come to think of it - about all of this, Dick and Sobel and Joan.  _ She’s doing you proud, Annie, _ he thought to himself, still watching the figures, now distant in the twilight.  _ They’re all doing you proud.  _

_ And I’m...well, who knows what I’m doing, but I’m trying _ .  _ And that’s got to count for something. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Depending on which memoir you read, there are several variants to how 'The Mutiny' actually took place. Several people think Winters engineered it, or pushed for it to happen; several others maintain it was the sergeants themselves who clubbed together to convince the others. To the best of my knowledge, Winters himself denied having influenced it at all.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the space of a few days, the sergeants have revolted, the court martial has been cancelled, and the 506th finds itself ...rearranged. There will be some changes made - but whether they're for good or ill is yet to be seen.

Wars, it is generally agreed, are loud and violent, coming in with clamor and alarm, a thing that can be seen, and sensed, and felt, their progress tracked and measured on the map.

What happened next, then, was more like a murder, a mob slaying in a back alley with a knife twisted up between the ribs, the body left to be found the next morning by an unsuspecting housewife putting out her bins.

And what a body it was.

In the space of a few days, the sergeants had revolted, the court martial had been paused, and the 506th found itself suddenly shaken up, from crown to toe tip, and no one would say why - though guesses could be ventured, by those with only slightly more information than the rest. But the blood on the pavement remained - Sobel, it seemed, was out.

In the end, there was no Bonfire Night celebration of the C.O.'s departure - no effigy was burned, and much as they might have liked to see it, no one was run out of town on a rail. Sobel was seen leaving Littlecote with his trunk and his travel papers in hand, the jeep departing in the direction of Chilton Foliat and the airfield, and that was the end of that. "And good riddance," the prevailing opinion went, as several of the men watched the jeep go by. “Yeah, don’t let the door hit you.”

But for all its finality and long-looked-for deliverance, Sobel’s departure still left more questions than answers. Salty Harris was being packed off to God knew where, and Mike Ranney’s sleeve had a strangely faded spot on it where his stripes had been - and on the subject of empty spaces, there were now two positions that needed filling where Easy Company sergeants were concerned. Positions that, after the events of the preceding week, no one was quite sure they wanted, even if they did come with an increase in pay. 

There would be changes made, that was for certain - and some of them might be ...uncomfortable.

"Doesn't seem real, that's all," Doris said, holding the chevrons in her hand as she waited for Ruth to fish through in her trunk for a sewing kit. They had been presented, with little fanfare, by Welsh and Lipton barely an hour earlier, Welsh’s eyes bright but serious, Lipton’s gaze just as calm and direct as it had been back at Toccoa. "I don't know anything about being a sergeant.”

“You think Terry and Mike knew anything special?” Ruth shot back over her shoulder, absolutely not here for either defeatism or self-deprecation. “Do you think Marj does?”

“Yeah, but Marj was a teacher.”

“And you've got all those siblings and cousins at home, Doris! You can shout. People listen to you. And you're... good at hearing directions and explaining things. Harry and Lip wouldn't have picked you if they didn't think you couldn’t handle it.”

Doris looked back down at the chevrons - a new pair, not...some that had been ripped from a jacket, or anything quite so violent. But they still felt stolen, somehow - and she didn’t want to meet Mike’s eye the next time they crossed paths. “Just going to take some getting used to, that's all. Sergeant Russo.” The words sounded strange on her tongue.

“You should write your ma,” Ruth advised, trying to set aside a stack of shirts so they’d be easy to put back inside the trunk when she was done. “She'd be proud of you - put it in the church paper or something. Tell all the little old neighbor ladies when they come over for tea. That's my daughter, Sergeant Russo, over in France with the 506.”

Doris smiled at the thought of her mother going around with her next letter home, trying to outdo all the other mothers with news from the Pacific and Italy. “I guess.” But it was more than that, more than her mother being proud, and she was finding it hard to put just exactly how she was feeling into words. The look on Lip’s face hadn’t exactly inspired confidence. He’d looked...tired. Stretched, somehow. The business with Winters and the court martial had really done a number on everyone, but the officers and non-coms seemed to have taken it the hardest - and why wouldn’t they, when they’d be left with the mess if or when Sobel flubbed something else? But that wasn’t all of it, not really. “It's just, this is how it's going to be, from now on, isn't it? People are going to be... gone, and we're going to replace them. Like this." She gestured, limply, with the chevrons.

"Can't worry about what hasn't happened yet," Ruth said strongly, still searching in her trunk. "It's what I keep telling my mother, isn't it?"

Doris felt her heart drop. They shared families now the same way they shared lipstick and earrings, swapping letters from home to fill in gaps when mail went missing, my sister this, my brother that, have a cookie, my ma makes them better than anyone, and by now everyone knew about Ruth’s family and had practically adopted her mother, who worried more than anyone else’s because she ...simply had more to worry about. "You hear anything more about your cousins?"

Ruth stopped, sat back on her heels, and shook her head. "At synagogue they keep saying..." She trailed off, unsure what she could say, or if saying it would somehow jinx something, and instead raised her hands in the universal shrug. "Look, Doris, she's going to worry anyway, so what’s the use? Send her some good news, while you have it. You've got a promotion. More pay, a new picture for the mantle. We'll have one taken in Swindon next week, you and me. Get a nice shot with those new stripes." She looked up at Doris, still smiling, but...painfully, almost, as if she were forcing herself to do it. “It's the only thing we can do, isn't it? Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag and smile, smile, smile?”

But Doris wasn’t given the chance to answer - the door opened, noisily, and Bill Guarnere, obviously more pleased than most with recent events, strode inside with a big smile. “Here she is!” he said, congratulations at the ready as he snapped a salute. “Sergeant Russo, ma’am!” But neither Doris nor Ruth were smiling back, and a little bit of the air went out of his balloon. “What's up with the face, sunshine? You're supposed to be celebrating!” He gave her a good cuff on the arm, for emphasis. “It's a promotion! It's a good thing! Means someone thinks you oughta be in charge of things.”

But Doris wasn’t biting. “You hear anything about the new CO?”

More air out of the balloon - Bill adjusted accordingly and cleared his throat a little. “Yeah, Meehan, from Baker Company. You'll know the face, he's been around. And we're getting a couple of new looeys, for the jump. Easier replacements, in case... you know.” 

Doris figured she’d better go for it. “Bill, you gonna tell me why you all went in there and turned in your stripes?”

If Bill Guarnere had been expecting something, that question wasn’t it - he fumbled for a moment, leaning back into a bit of his usual defensive braggadocio as he looked between the two women, mouths in almost identical lines. “What are they saying?”

“They're not  _ saying _ anything,” Doris replied. “They're waiting for  _ you.” _

“All's we know," Ruth said, backing her friend up, "is that Winters was up on a bullshit charge, and Marj said something to make every single one of you march into Sink’s office and resign."

Bill looked uncomfortable - but there was an air of decision about his face, a sense that he knew exactly what he’d done - and the others did, too. It was just a matter of...sharing it. "Look, it don't really matter what Marj said. You just gotta trust who's in charge, and that's all there is to it. We've got some officers now, good ones, and they're...they're going to do all right by us, okay. That’s what sergeants do, they look after their people. And we were all...looking after all of you.” His jaw was fixed - they would get no more. “Now grab your gear, it’s nice out and Johnny wants to try out Marj’s fastball for a bit, take everyone’s mind off of things.”

Ruth looked dumbfounded. “You think we’re going to forget this over _baseball?_ ” 

“No,” he replied, equally direct, “but we’re gonna remember what it’s like to have fun. We’re overdue.”

Ruth threw the tight little roll of her sewing housewife in Doris’ direction and haphazardly dumped the rest of her trunk back in so she could follow the two of them out to the calisthenics field. It looked like they would get no more answers - and for the present, it would have to suffice. 

* * *

It wasn't like Harry to be this quiet.

He hadn't said a word, not after they'd left the company office at Littlecote, or gone to the motorpool for the jeep, or even for the fifteen minutes they'd been driving in the direction of Ramsbury and the airfield. Not one single peep. 

"Got something on your mind, Harry?" 

Harry paused drumming his fingers on the steering wheel and glanced over at her, obviously stewing over something. "Isn't there a phrase 'Start something like you mean to finish it'?

“I have heard that, yes.”

“So my question is, how's Meehan planning on finishing this if he's sending _ us _ to pick up the new second lieutenant?”

Joan abbreviated her smile, trying not to look too amused. “Do you want me to tell you what I  _ think _ , Harry, or what I think you  _ want to hear _ ?" Harry's frown told her what he thought of the distinction, and she chose accordingly. "I think he's trying to make the best of a bad lot. He's got a lot on his plate taking over the company and he wants to show us he trusts us.” 

“You can't seriously think that! This is classic 'shit rolls downhill' and you know it, Joan.”

She shrugged - there would be no winning this. “Okay, maybe it is. Maybe he's lazy. But at least he had the courtesy to be lazy with clear expectations attached. The new guy will be greeted, on time, by someone who knows where he's supposed to go - which is more than we got, remember?”

He sighed, looking a little bitter - she was right, as always. No one had done them the courtesy of meeting them when they’d come to Mackall - they’d had to work that bit out for themselves. Meehan, of course, couldn’t have known that - but Dick had, which was why he’d suggested in their meeting this morning that someone go collect the new lieutenant - Compton - from the airfield. It said a lot about the new C.O. that not only had he taken the suggestion, but that they’d even had the meeting in the first place to discuss it. Sobel had never told them anything.

They flashed their IDs at the gate checkpoint to the airfield, waiting for the sentry to raise the arm. The sentry took an extra long look at Joan’s ID, his eyes narrowing and flashing between the picture on the card and the woman in the front seat. “Yes, you’ve read that right,” Harry confirmed, impatient, drumming his fingers along the wheel again. The sentry colored a little and passed them back, gesturing for his colleague to raise the gate.

“I live for the day when I’m not a circus attraction,” Joan said, resignedly, and Harry only laughed.

They skidded up to the gravel parking pad next to one of the hangars and Harry put the jeep into park, checking the brake before hopping out and fixing his cap. "Well, how do we look?" he said, pulling his bomber jacket down a little while Joan checked the crease on her trousers and tamed a flyaway in the side mirror of the jeep.

"Like a couple of idiots who volunteered to jump out of planes," she assured him.

“So, the best kind of idiots, in other words," Harry shot back with one of his trademark grins, willing, at least for the moment, to put his ill will towards Meehan aside so they could go find their new fellow officer.

It would have taken work to miss Second Lieutenant Lynn Compton - tall, blonde, and chiseled, he looked like a Hollywood star who'd misplaced his USO tour. And well he might have been, sitting next to the hangar with his barracks bag waiting for his ride. But they didn't pass out jump wings or parachute badges lightly, and he was the only man around who might have fit the description of the replacement officer they'd been sent to collect. 

"You folks from the 506?" he asked, as Harry and Joan walked up. 

"Guilty as charged," Harry said, holding out a hand to shake. Compton did so, a single jerk downward that seemed intent on shaking Harry in his shoes - but he held his ground. "Lieutenant Harry Welsh, and Lieutenant Joan Warren."

"How do you do?" Joan held out her hand, and Compton, after some hesitation, took it, though she got a much more abbreviated handshake, as if in the interval he'd somehow forgotten how it was done.

“I've gotta tell you, when they told me I was joining this outfit, I was a little - well, I mean, the girls look great on the sideline, but can they take a tackle, you know what I'm saying?" He smiled at Harry, the golden boy who could do no wrong, and found only a curiously empty expression on Harry’s usually very friendly face _.  _

"Major Horton said that you were at UCLA?" Harry asked, more to make polite conversation than any genuine interest. “He mentioned you did training for a bit, stateside, being a college athlete and all.”

"Lettered in two sports," Compton said proudly, trying to regain some of his lost momentum - though, interestingly enough, still really only talking to Harry, as though if he avoided looking at Joan long enough she’d disappear. "Picked to the All American team last year for baseball, and earlier this year I was playing in the Rose Bowl."

"Well, we're, ah, we're not big on football at the moment, but Easy Company does have the best PT record in the outfit," Harry said offhandedly, patently aware that he was having to play peacemaker, a role he hated. "And we've got some good ball players. Fact, Joan, weren’t you just saying they were thinking of having a game today, since the weather's nice?” He made a point of turning to Joan, politely waiting to be included in the conversation again. She nodded, her own face in neutral, an expression she hadn’t had to use too much since OCS. “Let's take a drive over there, see how they're getting on, why don’t we? We’ll introduce you around."

Compton nodded and jerked a thumb at Joan. "She coming with?"

Harry looked more than a little strained. "Well, Warren is one of our platoon leaders, so, yes, she is." 

Compton didn’t look pleased with this information, but took it in stride, picking up his bag and following the two of them back to the jeep. “I’ll take the back,” Joan offered, feeling generous. “They didn’t design these things for space.”

Compton’s eyes couldn’t help but follow Joan into the back of the Jeep, covering for it by passing his bag over the back of the seat as soon as she’d sat down and made space for it on the floor beside her.

“Word around was that there was some reorganization in the company recently - some officer getting court martialed?”

“That was all a misunderstanding,” Harry replied smoothly, checking the gages and listening to the engine turn over. “The guy responsible for the trouble’s been removed.” His smile flashed in the rearview mirror, momentarily meeting Joan’s eye, his meaning obvious -  _ let’s roast the bastard.  _ “They’re a good group - but, well, heck, what do I know. Joan's been in with these guys since Toccoa, isn't that right, Joan?" Harry said, playing dumb as he steered out of the airfield and out northwards, towards Littlecote. 

"Since Toccoa?" Compton couldn’t have hidden the sharp swivel backwards if he’d tried - that had impressed him. And why wouldn’t he be, when the talk of the army was on the two year program Colonel Sink had built from nothing to make paratroopers out of raw recruits? But obviously the articles he’d been reading hadn’t mentioned the women enough.

"The ROTC doesn't take women," Joan said, just a little cuttingly, from the backseat. "We have to work our way up from the bottom. Harry started as a buck private, too, though, Harry, didn't you?"

"Yep," Harry responded. "I was with the 82nd and transferred in.”  _ So if you think that UCLA letter sweater gets you extra privileges, think again, buddy. _ “But don't worry, they're a good bunch. Very disciplined, very tough. You would have fit right in at Toccoa, Compton, Colonel Sink's very big on fitness and sport. As part of training they'd have to run up this hill - well, it's more of a mountain, really - three miles up, three miles down."

"Who holds the company record on that?"

Harry’s eye met Joan’s in the rear-view mirror again. This was almost too easy. They could tell that Compton was eager for it, hungry for the recognition. Not, of course, that one could challenge the running record for a hill in Georgia when they were presently in England, but he was asking to find out more about the men to beat - a way to assert his position and his skill. 

And by god, they were going to give it to him.

"Well, I - I think Joan does, actually," Harry reported, trying too hard not to grin over the steering wheel. "She may well have the regimental record as well. And aren't you the holder of the Maryland women's state record in the five thousand meters, or something?"

"And the ten-thousand," Joan added, trying not to sound too smug from the back seat. “Goucher College, class of 39. My bachelor’s is in geography. I think I heard Major Horton say you’re not quite finished with your degree - is that right?”

Compton looked like he regretted asking, and said nothing.

The rest of the ride was mercifully silent, Harry pointing out a few landmarks but otherwise keeping himself to himself, waving at a few passing farmers and the odd car heading in the opposite direction.

“Seems the locals like us?” Compton ventured, as they went past Morgan’s and the Land Girls waved while Harry laid on the horn.

“And we’ve worked very hard to keep it that way,” Joan offered from the back seat, giving a big wave to the girls in the bottom field.

It was a fine day, for November - the crispness of fall had come with none of the damp, and with the wind not too high, it was a reasonably nice day for, to borrow a phrase, 'making fun while the sun shines.'

The company had divided out between two sides of an ersatz baseball diamond, a couple of stained pillowcases stuffed with hay standing in for bases. Some had baseball mitts, though most did not, and the mixture of turned up fatigue caps, rolled jackets, and Toccoa PT shirts gave the thing the air of a real neighborhood ball game - mercifully short of any windows to shatter or mothers to lean out of balconies telling you it was time for lunch. They were batting away from the house - and if the ball went as far as the river, it was a fair thing to say that it counted as ‘out’.

"Oh, Sergeant Gordon's pitching,” Harry observed, as they came up to the game, already in play. “This is going to be good. One of your squad leaders," he filled in for Compton’s benefit.

"Gordon a good ball player?" Compton was excited - here was familiar territory and the promise of an ally.

"One of our best - hell of a pitcher, too. Hey there, Luz, what's the word?" Harry asked. The Easy Company radioman was on the sideline keeping score on a large discarded piece of roofing slate and heckling the current batter.

"Three to two, one out, and no one was kidding about that fastball," he reported, watching another one zip over the plate while Molly swung and missed. "Doin' fine, Mol, doin' just fine, walk it off."

There was mischief in Welsh’s eyes, and he glanced back at Joan again. "You want to take a swing, Lieutenant?" He asked on a sudden whim. "Hey, Johnny, stand the order down.” Johnny Martin, sitting on the sideline and clapping, half-heartedly, for Molly’s performance, looked up, confused. “Lieutenant Compton here’s going to have a go at Gordon’s fast ball,” Harry explained, before he turned out to the mound. “Don’t go easy on him, Gordon!” he shouted. “He’s a big kid, he can take it.”

A touch of the cap from the pitcher on the mound - heard and acknowledged.

"Happy to hold your coat," Joan offered, the one single domestic service she'd provide. He nodded and shucked his jacket, carefully flatting his cap and threading it through the shoulder strap before passing it to Joan. He unbuttoned his cuffs, rolling his sleeves to the elbows, and accepted the bat from Johnny before testing the earth at the plate with his boots and settling into the familiar stance.

“Yep, definitely a football player,” Harry said quietly to Joan.

“But does he  _ think  _ like one, is the real question,” she added, just as quietly.

Harry stared. “Joanie Warren, are you getting  _ catty  _ today?”

“I can swim, jump, run and row, Harry, but there’s no female equivalent for football,” Joan pointed out with a pinched smile. “And in my experience, that tends to leave the men who play it thinking they’re God Almighty even when they can’t ever seem to think further than ten yards ahead.”   


“Remind me to circle back on this when you’ve got some liquor in you, I want to hear more about this.” Harry was fairly beaming at this uncharacteristic anger, and Joan gave him a small shove for it, the two of them settling back against the hood of the Jeep to watch the first fastball flash across the plate and Compton’s bat eat air. 

“Strike one!” shouted Connie from the catcher’s mask, and it was music to their ears.

Compton, for his part, looked impressed - it had obviously been a while since someone had smoked one past him, even playing on an All American team, and he settled into the box with determination in every line of his brow, grinding his jump boots into the dirt to get a better purchase. He wasn’t going to let Sergeant No One from Nowhere strike him out, that was for darn sure.

The second ball sailed over the plate - no swing. George, on the sideline, laughed and clapped.

“C’mon, Gordon, something he can hit!” Harry shouted, feeling inflammatory - the pitcher gave him a long look that made Joan, beside him, laugh. Another ball, another swing, this time - “Strike Two!”

Compton stepped back a moment, adjusting his shirt a little, and then stepped back to the box, his hands gripping and flexing around the baseball bat. His blood was up and both Harry and Joan could see it - he was going to hit the next ball over the plate or die in the attempt. In the middle of the field, the pitcher wound up one more ball, eyes fixed on Connie and her catcher’s mitt, and threw.

Snap. 

Compton’s powerful arms swung the maple Slugger with intent to harm, but the only sound was that of leather striking leather, as the ball drilled straight into Connie’s waiting catcher's mitt. “St-reike three! Sorry, Lieutenant,” Connie offered. “Not your day, I guess. ”

Compton stepped away from the plate, wiping his brow, clearly impressed. "Jesus, that's an arm."

"Gordon, get in here!" Welsh waved the pitcher in from the mound, and down she came, taking her fatigue cap off and letting the pony-tail fall. 

One could almost see the bottom fall out of Lynn Compton's baby blue eyes. Struck out - by a  _ lady  _ sergeant.

Harry, on the other hand, looked about ready to bounce out of his shoes, and he was having trouble restraining his smiles - he loved a good ribbing as much as the next guy, and this was as good as it got. "Well, you can't say you do that every day. Lieutenant Lynn Compton, Sergeant Marjorie Gordon. Lieutenant Compton was just complimenting your pitching, Marj," he reported with a smile. "And he ought to know - he was an All-American for baseball at UCLA."

"Is that so? Nice to have you on our team, sir." Marjorie tucked her mitt under her arm and held out her hand to shake.

It was the stuff of a thousand baseball games in a thousand small towns, a friendly routine gesture offered without malice, and it couldn’t have been more perfect if they’d planned and rehearsed the whole thing. Marjorie didn’t know a thing about what had transpired in the jeep on the way over, hadn’t spent the last fifteen minutes listening to Compton complain about women he hadn’t met yet, wondering if they could take a tackle. She was simply speaking the language of the game they both knew and played, and the results were pretty clear - she’d struck him out, plain and simple. 

But there was more to it than just Marjorie on her pitcher’s mound, and Harry and Joan could see it - the slow realization of faces he didn’t know yet, Connie, behind the catcher's mask, June on second base, muttering to Chuck at shortstop, Doris and Bill on the sideline, sewing on sergeants stripes with Ruth and Johnny, Billie in the outfield, punching her glove, anxious to get on with the game. There would be no avoiding them, no sidelining. They were already there, already part of the team - and from the way the men stood next to them, they were already taking the tackles.

Compton looked at her hand for a moment before accepting, an expression that might have been a smile lighting his face. "Nice to be here,” he offered. “And it’s usually Buck, to my friends." 

The moment broke under pressure from George and Hoobler, shouting from the sideline about the delay of game; Marjorie returned to the mound while Compton retreated from the battling box, taking his coat from Joan with a smile that was almost apologetic so he could continue cheering from the side.

In the end, it was Marj’s fastball (and a series of doubles by Alley and Malarkey) that won the game, five to two, allowing introductions to continue over in the Bell over a shared round of beers. Compton had loosened up a little, and it appeared that now George Luz was trying to tempt the much taller officer into a round of darts, an offer that Compton was trying hard not to take up.

Marj had finally escaped the press at the bar, glad that it wasn’t every day they had time for a game. The weather had started turning cold again in the last inning and it was good to be back inside in the warm.

“Sergeant Gordon, do you have a moment?”

She turned towards the voice - it was Lewis Nixon, obviously fresh from headquarters and knowing he was where he didn’t belong. Marj had snuck enough drinks with Joan at the Blue Boar to know that Nixon was usually in the middle of the party, but this was the enlisted pub, by special decree of Colonel Sink, and thus somewhat off-limits to officers without some special invitation - which was why Nixon was hanging back, and had not taken the time to procure a glass.

"Don't see you here often, sir," she offered.

“Well, we ought to keep some separation of church and state," Nixon said, silently acknowledging that he knew he was in the wrong. "I just came to collect the others,” he said, nodding over to Compton, Harry and Joan. “But, ah, while I have you - two things. First, congratulations - I hear you managed to strike out Hollywood over there in a little batting practice this afternoon.” He motioned with his chin in the direction of the new lieutenant. Marjorie suddenly remembered something Joan had said about Nixon not liking jocks and wondered if they’d have a problem. “Good job. Sounds like he needs to come down a few pegs.”

Marjorie restrained a smile - so the thing about jocks was true.  _ Hasn’t even been here five hours and he’s already on Nixon’s black list. It might be a record. _ “Thank you, sir. And ...second?”

Nixon’s face turned a little more serious. “That conversation you and I had the other day with Lieutenant Warren,” he said, careful in his ambiguity. “She didn't...do that _ just  _ for the company, did she?”

Marjorie took a breath and studied him a minute. The noise of the regular Friday crowd made their conversation happily anonymous, two people who could speak without fearing to be overheard, and they both knew it. Two could play this game - and  _ she  _ could ask her questions openly here, too. "Am I answering her fake boyfriend, or his friend?" She knew she didn’t need to specify who  _ he  _ was, and she appreciated the brief smile on the S2’s face. 

"You're answering the guy who made them dance together," Lewis clarified.

She nodded - it was a fair answer. She knew what he meant by that - and it deserved an answer in kind. "You're right. It wasn't for the whole company - not really." 

Lewis smiled, and nodded, obviously pleased with this news but trying to remain impartial. "Good. Glad we got that sorted out. They're both a little hard to read sometimes, and I like getting a second opinion when I can." He looked back at her. "Are we...on the same page, about it?"

Still a little buzzed on winning the game and the beer in her hand, Marjorie thought for a minute on what 'the same page' might be. Lewis was a flirt as well as a friend, 'useful' in Joan's phrase because she knew (or thought she did) that whatever was between them wasn't going anywhere. But he was Winters' friend, too - Joan always drew back to that, when she talked about the two men.  _ He likes helping people _ , she had said once,  _ though it might kill him if anyone found out he's really got a heart underneath all that bluster _ . 

Marj had seen that heart, that sense of care, that afternoon when they’d gone to his house, his eyes blazing as the two of them unfolded two years of secrets - but she’d seen it earlier, too, that night at the dance, watching his two friends enjoy themselves with a look of inestimable pleasure, the eyes of the room on them instead of him.

"I think so, sir. But I think you and I both know that’s not happening tomorrow,” she cautioned, tempering her optimism. “They are who they are."

"And would we love them if they weren’t? ” he asked with a resigned smile. “Well, thank you, again. Keep me...updated, will you?”

“Do my best, sir.”

He nodded, diving into the crowd at the bar to begin pulling the three lieutenants away from their drinks and Compton’s adoring public, leaving Marjorie alone with her thoughts again.

There was a letter to Allen waiting for her back at barracks - she wasn’t the world’s best correspondent but she’d told him she’d try to write every week, while she had the time, and there had been far too much in last week’s letter.

_ Sweetheart, _

_ It seems like a century since I've seen your face. I hope you've got someone who can remind you to step away from your desk and give your shoulders a squeeze when you've been working too long. If not, here is me telling you now! Is it cold enough where you are for hockey yet? Please remember to go outside and do something you enjoy for an hour. We played a game of ball here today and I can't tell you what it did for my soul. Really loosened me up, reminded me who I am inside.  _

_ Have enlisted a second opinion on my 'boy problem.' Will let you know if we see any forward movement. In the absence of maneuvers, this is about the most fun many of us are having at the moment. Do you have any office romances blossoming over by you? I can’t imagine the crossword puzzle types go in for that sort of thing, but one never knows.  _

_ Thanksgiving feels like it’s coming fast. If you do manage to get home, please say hi to your folks for me and drop a line to mine. My mother’s going on about knitting you a sweater. Maybe she’ll have it done by then. _

_ Hugs and kisses, _

_ Marj _


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The US Army is a masterwork of supply chain engineering - but there are just some things men don't like handling, so Marj and Doris are on a supply run.

The modern army was a masterwork of engineering.

They had all seen the docks, when they’d departed from New York, stack after stack of crates and boxes and barrels, as far as the eye could see, all waiting to be loaded into the belly of the beast so they could be coughed up, spit out, and reassembled in Europe.Instant army - just add soldiers! Word was that General Motors was planning on opening up a whole factory to assemble trucks just like they did in Detroit, a new machine every fifteen minutes, ready to roll off the assembly line and sock old Adolf on the jaw. And to make the whole thing go, entire regiments of supply officers stood by with clipboards, the whole fighting power of America at their fingertips, ready to dispense the arsenal of democracy upon an unsuspecting world.

“All this stuff, and for five - FIVE - measly little boxes, we have to go get them ourselves because the army can't be bothered?” Doris sat further back in the seat of the jeep and gave a dismissive sniff, tucking herself further into her field jacket and pulling her cap down a little further against the wind. “War profiteering.”

Marj snorted and tried to keep her eyes on the road. (There had been a herd of sheep a few miles back.) "Come on, Doris, you know very well why,” she said with a grin, waiting for a beat. “The boys'll get cooties." 

Doris gave an ugly laugh. They were referring, of course, to their sanitary napkins - which could not, for reasons mystic and arcane, come with the rest of the regimental supplies straight to the regimental supply officer, and instead had to be collected from a secondary point - in this case, one of the hospital units in the area. Which was why Marj and Doris had been dispatched with a jeep, griping all the way.

It was one more wall on the obstacle course. First it had been the uniforms, which they'd needed to tailor in from boot camp on since the Army didn't quite do women's sizes, then the boots, which even in the smallest sizes needed their toes stuffed. Bathrooms and washhouses they'd managed, enduring jokes about where in their packs they'd have room for their curlers. And, of course, the ubiquitous call-back for when a woman dares to be peevish -  _ What, you on the rag or something? _

Well, they weren't just going to stand for that, not after everything else, and Marj, at that point veteran of not much else but three years teaching in the public school system, put her science teacher hat firmly on, set three shot glasses on the table and calmly explained menstrual cycles in the middle of the PX - that the blood was the lining of the uterus, that a woman could expect to lose about this much blood in the course of a week - while going about her life as though this were normal, which it was, and that nothing was happening, which it was not. This, incidentally, was about half as much blood as one might lose from a bullet wound - and they did this every month.

The three shot glasses really sold it.

There were no jokes after that - though afterwards there were many furtive conversations between friends asking for further information. "The women of America are going to owe Marj a drink," June said sincerely, after one such. "I don't think my father ever offered my mother a cup of coffee when Aunt Flo was visiting." Around the table, everyone silently agreed.

Coffee, cups of tea, chocolate bars, sympathy and extra space in pockets for bottles of aspirin - useful, to more than one person, as it happened. A few people actually started asking each other what hurt instead of putting them down for it. 

"Hey, how's Welsh treating you these days?” Marjorie said, changing the subject while still trying to watch the road. She’d been allowed to pick her copilot, and while she was sure any of her other fellow sergeants would have gone, she’d wanted the opportunity to talk to Doris where they wouldn’t be overheard. “You still settling in okay?"

“Yeah,” Doris said, looking sheepish, sitting up a little in her seat and rearranging herself. "Just taking some getting used to, is all."

"Well, you're doing great," Marj assured her. "And Welsh doesn't just go around giving compliments willy-nilly, you know. He's got nothing but nice things to say, to hear Joan tell it - will tell anyone who will listen we should have promoted you sooner."

"How’re you finding Compton?" Doris asked, obviously happy to change the subject. "Bill thinks Winters doesn't care for him."

Marj nodded, smiling. She'd heard, by now, about the disastrous jeep ride from the airport, and she was fairly certain others had, too. It wasn't the best way to start with a new unit - but as quick as he'd been to put his foot in his mouth, Buck Compton had been pretty quick to learn his lessons, too. "My father used to say that you didn't have to like men to work with 'em," she ventured. "He's all right - has his head screwed on the right way and knows how to give an order and make people follow him. He's always been square and fair with me, but...he's got some pride on him, can be a little pretentious. I could see how that would strike Winters the wrong way."  _ I _ _ talso probably doesn't help that the first thing he did was talk down to Joan, _ she thought to herself,  _ but we'll save that for another time.  _ "I think we'll be just fine with him," she said, and meant it. "And Meehan, and Hester and Heyliger and the rest of 'em. I think we owe Captain Sutton big for that. Apparently she read Winters and Nixon the riot act back at Toccoa. And Winters is reading it to every single new officer they get in - Compton included."

"I wonder how she's doing," Doris mused. "Got all her new girls running the obstacle course and all that. You think she was torn up, about not going overseas with us?

“I really couldn’t say,” Marjorie ventured. She’d wondered the same thing herself, watching Joan struggle on the margin of the officer’s crowd, in the fold but not entirely of it. Would it have helped, having Sutton with them, a fellow sufferer? (And on the subject of Joan - was Harry sharing chocolate bars with her? He seemed the type.) “She kept herself to herself. But I expect I might be. Spend all that time with a group of people and it sort of molds you together.”

Doris nodded, and for a while the only sound was the wind, whipping through the hedges as they went by.

In the grand English tradition of words that meant different things, the castle to which they’d been dispatched for the supplies turned out to be yet another very large house, not a single turret or drawbridge in sight, tents and parked vehicles spreading out into the grassy lawn with a single small hand-lettered shingle pointing the way to HQ and not much else. “Now isn’t that like every hospital you’ve ever been in?” Marj asked, pointing to the sign. “Where’s a receptionist when you need one?” She looked around and sighed. “We parachute blind into Europe in six months, and here’s me lost and still thinking ‘Gee, I’d like a map.” Doris almost laughed.

They took the keys and wandered the outskirts for a minute, unsure where to even begin. It was one thing to know the layout for their own camps, but who wanted to go wandering around a hospital installation? 

"Help you ladies with something?" A nurse looked down from the back of the deuce and a half she was loading, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and moving closer to the lift gate to hear them. 

"We're from the 506th - supposed to check in with a supply officer about something," Marjorie offered, looking up and shielding her eyes a moment. "Don't suppose you know where I could find him?"

"They don't issue you your own band-aids with the Airborne?" The nurse asked with a small smile, not trying to be mean about it.

"Tampons," Marjorie confirmed. The nurse snorted. 

"Figures. I'll help you in just a minute when my partner gets back here - this place is a bit of a maze."

“Marj?”

It was the other nurse, the partner the woman on the truck had spoken of, coming back from her delivery. Marjorie turned towards the voice and stared, obviously not believing what she was seeing - or hearing. “Frankie?”

Doris and the nurse on the truck were left staring as the two women ran to each other, Marjorie practically picking the other woman up to hug her, the kind of embrace that says you have not seen the other person in a very long time, and are made better by the meeting. 

“What the heck is a nice girl like you doing in a war like this?” her friend asked, stepping back to take a good look at her. “I thought you were teaching school in Rochester.”

“I was,” Marjorie said with a shrug. “Figured I’d try something new.”

‘Something new’ was something of an understatement, and her friend Frankie clearly knew it. “And the regular WACs weren’t good enough? Does Allen know you’re here?”

Marjorie gave another expansive shrug, a practiced sort of gesture that Doris recognized well - Marj had obviously told this story once or twice before, doubtless when she’d been home for Christmas. “Allen’s in DC doing something secretive and important, and I didn’t feel right sitting at home - and in the WAC they sit you down at a typewriter and no one listens to the instructor. I...wanted to be in an outfit with people who cared. So I joined the paratroopers. ”

“And they made you a sergeant,” her friend said, tapping her sleeve and her stripes. 

“Well, it’s basically like teaching school, except they’re all your age and there are guns involved.” 

Frankie laughed. “Yeah, that’s about the size of it. Laura, c’mere, I want you to meet someone.” She turned to her buddy, jumping down from the lift gate to join the other three women on the ground. “This is Marjorie Gordon - we went to college together at the U of M. Marjorie, this is Laura Arsenault - another one of our nurses.”

“And her long-suffering tentmate,” the nurse who’d greeted them said with a grin, folding her arms and joining the party. “Heard a lot about Frankie’s wild days at the U - amazing you both are still alive to talk about it.” 

Frankie nodded. “I taught this woman everything she knows about first aid.”

“Taught me everything I  _ forgot _ about first aid, more like,” Marjorie corrected. “This is Doris Russo - another one of our sergeants.” 

There was much shaking of hands - Frankie was a bright-eyed Irish sort with a firm handshake and the sort of smile that looked like it could get along with just about anyone, her friend Laura slightly more circumspect but obviously just as willing to make or take a joke. “They couldn’t send any guys on the supply run for your tampons?” 

“Cooties,” Doris said quickly, which made both nurses laugh.

“There’s a lot of men in this army that are going to need to get used to the thought of a little blood,” Frankie said, rolling her eyes. “I swear, if someone had put the women in charge, this would have been over in 1942.”

“Isn’t that how it always is, though?” Laura asked. “Women do the heavy lifting, men get the credit?”

They all laughed. “You all have time to chat?” Frankie asked, obviously loving this small taste of home. “We can spot you a cup of coffee, at least, before we send you on your way. Not sure how your mess is with it but the stuff we’ve got here’s pretty good.”

Marj checked her watch, exchanged a glance with Doris, and nodded, letting Frankie and Laura lead the way through the hospital camp, Frankie explaining that most everyone else was in a lecture for the day. The mess hall was wonderfully empty, wooden tables and bench seats empty and pristine, waiting for the next shift change to serve up whatever it was the mess officer was trying to pass off as ‘lunch.’

Frankie tapped a table in what was obviously a favorite spot and insisted on bringing the mugs to them. “Just like a tea party,” she said, setting down four brimming cups while Laura followed behind with the sugar and powdered milk and a couple of spoons. “It’s strong,” she promised. “Stand a spoon up in it, just the way we like it.” 

“So, you tapped for this thing, too?” Marj asked, spooning powdered milk into her coffee and watching the color change. This thing, as if it were an assignment at school like supervising the lunchroom and not the whole goddamn invasion of Europe.

Frankie gave a shrug. “Best we know. Old hat for us at this point. This will be invasion number three for the good old 128th - North Africa, Sicily, and now here. Our boots are good and wet. They’ve got us teaching the new outfits how to pack and carry.”

The two paratroopers considered Frankie and Laura, the washed, lived in look of their field jackets and the strange curved burns on the toes of their boots, the patches on the knees of their fatigue trousers and the now permanent stains on the canvas of their infantryman’s leggings. These were women who’d been in it. “What’s it like?” Doris asked, quietly.

Frankie looked at Doris, considering who was asking, and why, and thought for a moment, taking a deep breath to return to some point in her past and really consider what it was that she had seen, wrapping her hands around her coffee mug for warmth. The tent got even quieter. “North Africa we landed eight hours after the first wave, D-day plus  _ nothing _ \- half our gear, no surgeons, no collection points. Green as the damn grass.” She shook her head. “At midnight they moved us forward so we could start working - and there was fighting five miles up the road. I’ve never been so scared in my life.” She looked down at the table, the tendrils of steam rising out of her coffee cup giving her an otherworldly look, a witch conjuring visions. “No one had taught us anything about guns, or landing exercises. We didn't know where anyone was going, or why - what does a nurse need to know about any of that? We just...clean up after.” She shook her head and looked at Laura, who smiled. “But we made it work. And you’ll make it work, too. Your training takes over- and they tell  _ you _ things.” She looked around at Doris, and at Marj, and smiled reassuringly. “You learn real quick who your people are, and who they aren’t.”

“We treated plenty of 82nd guys in Sicily,” Laura added. “You’ll be fine. And if you get hit bad - and I’m not saying you will - we’ll be right there to patch you up again,” she promised, meaning every word. “I might not have a unit commendation on my jacket, but we all take our Hippocratic oaths pretty seriously. And I know the other outfits do the same.”

“But if someone asks you to jump out of a plane onto a small rocky island in the Med, don’t do it,” Frankie said strongly, trying to raise the tone a little. “I’m sick and tired of setting broken legs.”

“Could be worse,” Laura said grimly, and Marjorie stopped and studied her for a moment over the lip of her coffee cup, wondering what the nurse could be thinking of when she said ‘worse’.

Frankie nodded, her face careful. “Could be.”

“What’s worse?” Doris wanted to know.

“We’re not the only war going at the moment,” Frankie reminded, grim but gentle. “Laura’s got a sister out in the Pacific.”

“Oh, Hawaii?” Doris assumed with a fond smile, taking a sip of her coffee. “Must be nice, being somewhere warm.”

"Oh, yeah, swell,” Laura said, her voice cutting and cold. Marjorie felt a shiver go down her spine - and Doris, bless her, had the sense to see she’d walked into something she shouldn’t have and set her coffee cup down. “See the world, recruiter said. Get posted to the Philippines and you'll have all the sun and sand and cute officers you could wish for. New hospitals, new equipment, a party every Friday night. Viv went for it like a shot. Worked out real well for her, didn't it - getting  _ left there _ by MacArthur."

Marjorie knew that look - and she read enough newspapers to know now where  _ there  _ was, and what had happened to Laura’s sister, doubtless now a ‘guest’ of the Japanese.  Or dead. That was a possibility, too. "How long since you've heard from her?"

"Almost two years," Laura said, drumming her fingers on the sides of her cooling coffee mug. "Not so much as a postcard. They've told my mom the Japs don't much go in for that sort of thing."

“I’m so sorry,” Doris said, and Laura looked up and flashed a brief smile, bygones to bygones again.

“You wouldn’t have known,” she said. “Viv’s... always been someone I looked up to - older sister and all that. Probably half the reason I became a nurse. And she was probably the first person who told me - showed me - that women are tough, that we can take just about anything the men can and then some. And that's what's going to win us the war. Sexist supply chains be damned.”

“Amen to that,” Marj said with a smile, raising her mug and clicking it with Laura’s in toast.

They finished their coffees over more memories of college (Doris’ eyebrows slowly rising further and further into her hair at some of the things Marj had done) and left their empty mugs in the dish return, the four of them making quick work of the crates (and a half a box of Hershey bars, and another box of aspirin.)

“Well, hey, let us return the favor here and buy you seasoned veterans a beer,” Marj offered as Frankie circled back with the last crate, Doris buckling them into the back seat of the jeep. “If we come back to camp saying we met up with a couple of cute nurses, there’ll be a mutiny if I say I didn’t at least try to invite you over.”

“Paratroopers, huh?” Frankie asked with a grin.

“We’ve got a couple of real cute ones,” Doris said, smiling. “Nice arms - all that riser training.”

Frankie and Laura exchanged smiles. “Won’t say no to that. I think we could get a jeep on a Friday, if we finish our chores and Mom says it’s okay. You all are in Aldbourne, right? Bring a couple of friends and we’ll make it a date.”

“You’re on.”

They exchanged hugs and addresses and all the usual goodbyes before Marj turned the jeep towards home, crates rattling in the backseat as she turned out onto the road. “She’s a good sort, Frankie,” she ventured with a thoughtful smile after they cleared the edge of the next town. “She dated one of Allen’s friends on the hockey team - I think they’re still together. He was shooting for med school, last I heard - he may be done, for all I know.” She drummed her fingers on the steering wheel and shifted into second, letting the engine purr into the gear. “It’s funny - Frankie was telling those stories about college, and all I could think of was those early days at Toccoa. All those girls who couldn’t go to bed without putting on their cold cream?”

“Yeah,” Doris said with a smile, remembering. “Or that girl who refused to run because she didn’t like the way she looked in PT shorts?”

“Yeah, her too. Maybe it’s all hindsight,” Marj ventured with a smile. “but I think after those first few days we had a pretty good idea of who was staying and who was going.” She looked over at Doris. “You, me, Joan, Billie, June. We learned who our people were, and who they weren’t. And there’s no one I’d rather be invading Europe with. Cold cream and curlers be damned.”

Doris smiled, and nodded, looking a little livelier around the eyes, as if in sharing those stories some weight had somehow been lifted. No woman is an island - hadn’t someone said that, once? Maybe it had been Annie Sutton. It sounded like her. But seeing Frankie, listening to her talk with Laura about what they’d seen, what they’d done, had reminded Marj, at least:  _ We’re in this together. No one has to do this alone. _ And she thought - or hoped she saw - that Doris realized that, too. The silence was contented now, the sun at midday dimly warm against their cheeks. 

“It’s going to be Skinny asking about the nurses, isn’t it?” Doris commented with a grin. 

“Yeah, I really can’t see either of them going for that,” Marjorie said flatly, and Doris laughed, long and loud and unafraid, the jeep flying down the road home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The development of what we now know today as the tampon owes as much to the miltary as anything else - it's the development of cellocotton, a synthethic material for bandages, during World War One that paved the way for disposable menstrual products in the 1930s. (Tampons were a very divisive topic in the 1930s - and we may well assume the Girl Gang may find themselves the subject of an advertising campaign if that's what they're using.)
> 
> The battle of Corregidor in May of 1942 was the final victory for the Japanese in their campaign to take the Phillipines.  
> A US Army installation since World War One, Corregidor held particular strategic importance as a way to guard Manila Bay, one of the best natural harbors in the Pacific. A network of huge fortified tunnels on the island served as a bunker and a hospital, and was one of the last bastions of the island's defense. When the Japanese took the island in May and General Wainwright surrendered, the remaining 11,000 US and Filipino service personnel on the island, including army and navy nurses, were taken as prisoners of war to camps in Manila and Bataan.
> 
> Laura Arsenault and her sister Vivian are based on a pair of real life siblings, Lt Martha Nash and her sister Frances. (Frances Nash was one of the Angels of Bataan, and, incidentally, is one of the reasons why I chose the name 'Frankie'.) Vivian, who's only mentioned here, appears on her own in The One that Hits You. 
> 
> The 48th/128th Surgical was a real unit and the one to which Martha Nash was posted, and they really were at Tortworth Castle in November of 1943 teaching other units. The summary that Frankie gives is fairly representative of their service. "And If I Perish: Frontline U.S. Army Nurses in World War II" by Evelyn Monahan and Rosemary Neidel-Greenlee is excellent.


End file.
